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THOMAS CHALMERS, D. D. 

MINISTER OF THE TRON CHURCH, GLASGOW. 



COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME. 



A. TOWAR, 19 ST. JAMES-ST. HOGAN & THOMPSON, i39£ MARKET-ST 

SOLD ALSO BY D. M. HOG AN, Pittsburg ,* F YEN, Neil) York ; 
pierce & pabker, Boston } D. woodruff, Tmcahcm, {Ala.) 

STEREOTYPED BY L, JOHNSON. 

1833. 



II 



EViuiLiVtiLj or OIIHICTI 



Chapter I. — On the Principles of Historical Evi- 
dence, and their Application to the Question of 
the Truth of Christianity. Page 9 

Chap. II. — On the Authenticity of the different 
Books of the New Testament. 16 

Chap. III. — On the internal Marks of Truth and 
Honesty to be found in the New Testament. 21 

Chap. IV. — On the Testimony of the Original Wit- 
nesses to the Truth of the Gospel Narrative. 27 

Chap. V. — On the Testimony of Subsequent Wit- 
nesses, 30 



Chap. VI. — Remarks on the Argument from Pro- 
phecy. 42 

Chap. VII.— Remarks on the Scepticism of Geo- 
logists. 45 

Chap. VOL — On the Internal Evidence, and the 
Objections of Deistical Infidels. 48 

Chap. IX.— On the Way of Proposing the Argu- 
men to Atheistical Infidels. 56 

Chap. X.— On the Supreme Authority of Reve- 
lation. 58 



DISCOURSES ON THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION, VIEWED IN 
CONNEXION WITH THE MODERN ASTRONOMY. 



Discourse I. — A Sketch of the Modern Astro- 
nomy. 68 

" When I consider thy heavens, the work of 
thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou 
hast ordained ; What is man, that thou art mind- 
ful of him ? and the son of man, that thou visitest 
him?" — Psalm viii. 3, 4. 

Disc. II.— The Modesty of True Science. 75 
" And if any man think that he knoweth any 
■thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to 
know." — 1 Cor. viii. 2. 

Disc. III. — On the Extent of the Divine Conde- 
scension. 83 

" Who is like unto the Lord our God, who 
dwelleth on high ; Who humbleth himself to be- 
hold the things that are in ieaven, and in the 
earth !" — Psalm cxiii. 5, 6. 

Disc. IV.— On the Knowledge of Man's Moral 
History in the Distant Places of Creation. 89 

"Which things the angels desire to look 
into.— 1 Peter i. 12. 



Disc. V.— On the Sympathy that is felt for Man in 
the Distant Places of Creation. 96 

"I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in 
heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than 
over ninety and nine just persons which need no 
repentance." — Luke xv. 7. 

Disc. VI. — On the Contest for an Ascendency 
over Man, among the Higher Orders of Intelli- 
gence. 102 

" And having spoiled principalities and powers, 
he made a show of them openly, triumphing over 
them in it." — Col. ii. 15. 

Disc. VII. — On the slender Influence of mere 
Taste and Sensibility in Matters of Religion. 107 

"And lo! thou art unto them as a very lovely 
song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can 
play well on an instrument ; for they hear thy 
words, but they do them not." — Ezekiel xxxiii. 
32. 

Appendix. 116 



SERMONS ON THE DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



Sermon I. — The Necessity of the Spirit to give 
Effect to the Preaching of the Gospel. 122 

"And my speech, and my preaching, was not 
with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in de- 
monstration of the Spirit and of power ; that your 
faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but 
in the power of God." — 1 Cor. ii. 4, 5. 

Serm. II. — The mysterious Aspect of the Gospel 
to the Men of the World. 130 

" Then said I, Ah, Lord God ! they say of me, 
Doth he not speak parables ?" — Ezek. xx. 49. 

Serm. III. — The Preparation necessary for Under- 
standing the Mysteries of the Gospel. 136 

" He answered and said unto them, Because it 
is given unto you to know the mysteries of the 
kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. 
For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and 
he shall have more abundance ; but whosoever 
hath not, from him shall be taken away even that 
he hath " -Mutth. xiii. 11, 12. 

Serm. IV — An Estimate of the Morality that is 
without Godliness. 142 

" If I wash myself with snow water, and make 
my hands never so clean ; yet shalt thou plunge 
me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall ab- 
hor me. For he is not a man, as I am, that I 
should answer him, and we should come together 



in judgment. Neither is there any day's-man be- 
twixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both." 
—Job ix. 30—33. 
Serm. V. — The Judgment of Men, compared with 
the Judgment of God. 147 

" With me it is a very small thing that I should 
be judged of you, or of man's judgment ; — he that 
judgeth me is the Lord." — 1 Cor. iv. 3, 4. 
Serm. VI. — The Necessity of a Mediator between 
God and Man. 154 

"Neither is there any day's-man betwixt us, 
that might lay his hand upon us both." — Job ix. 33. 
Serm. VII. — The Folly of Men measuring them- 
selves by themselves. 15S 

" For we dare not make ourselves of the num- 
ber, or compare ourselves with some that com- 
mend themselves : but they, measuring them- 
selves by themselves, and comparing themselves 
among themselves, are not wise." — 2 Cor.x. 12. 
Serm. VIE.— Christ the Wisdom of God. 165 

" Christ the Wisdom of God."— 1 Cor. i. 24. 
Serm. IX.— The Principles of Love to God. 171 
"Keep yourselves in the love of God." — 
Jude 21. 

Serm. X. — Gratitude, not a Sordid Affection. 176 
" We love him, because he first loved us." — 
1 John iv 19. 

3 



CONTENTS. 



Serm. XI.— The Affection of Moral Esteem to- 
wards God. 185 

" One thing have I desired of the Lord, that 
will 1 seek after ; that I may dwell in the house 
of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the 
beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his tem- 
ple." — Psalm xxvii. 4. 
Serm. XII.— The Emptiness of Natural Virtue. 192 
"But I know you, that ye have not the love of 

God in you." — John v. 42. • - • 

Serm. XIII.— The natural Enmity of the Mind 
against God. 201 

" The carnal mind is enmity against God."— 
Rom. viii. 7. 

Serm. XIV.— The Power of the Gospel to dissolve 



the Enmity of the human Hea' t against God. 206 

"Having slain the enmily hereby. " — Ephes. 
ii. 16. 

Serm.. XV.— The Evils o r false Security. 211 
" They have heafrit ->.?o the hurt of the daugh- 
ter of my people siignuy, saying, Peace, peace ; 
when there is no peace." — Jer. vi. 14. 

Serm. XVI.— The Union of Truth and Mercy in 
the Gospel. 217 

... "Mercy and truth are met together; righteous- 
ness and peace have kissed each other." — Psalm 
lxxxv. 10. 

Serm. XVII. — The purifying Influence of the 
Christian Faith. 222 
"Sanctified by faith." — Acts xxvi. 18. 



DISCOURSES ON THE APPLICATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO THE 
COMMERCIAL AND ORDINARY AFFAIRS OF LIFE. 



Discourse I. — On the mercantile Virtues which 
may exist without the Influence of Christianity. 229 

" Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, 
whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things 
are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever 
things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good 
report ; if there be any virtue, and if there be any 
praise, think on these things." — Phil. iv. 8. 

Disc. II. — The Influence of Christianity in aiding 
and augmenting the mercantile Virtues. 235 

" For he that in these things serveth Christ is 
acceptable to God, and approved of men." — 
Rom. xiv. 18. 

Disc. III. — The Power of Selfishness in promot- 
ing the Honesties of mercantile Intercourse. 241 

" And if you do good to them which do good 
to you, what thank have ye ? for sinners also do 
even the same." — Luke vi. 33. 

Disc. IV. — The Guilt of Dishonesty not to be esti- 
mated by the Gain of it. 249 

" He that is faithful in that which is least, is 
faithful also in much ; and he that is unjust in the 
least, is unjust also in much." — Luke xvi. 10. 

Disc. V. — On the great Christian Law of Recipro- 
city between Man and Man. 257 

"Therefore all things whatsoever ye would 
that men should do to you, do ye even so to 



them ; for this is the law and the prophets." — 
Matth. vii. 12. 
Disc. VI. — On the Dissipation of large Cities. 264 
" Let no man deceive you with vain words ; 
for because of these things cometh the wrath of 
God upon the children of disobedience." — Eph. 

Disc. VII. — On the vitiating Influence of the higher 
upon the lower Orders of Society. 271 

" Then said he unto the disciples, It is impos- 
sible but that offences will come : but woe unto 
him through whom they come ! It were better 
for him that a millstone were hanged about his 
neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should 
offend one of these little ones." — Luke xxii. 1,2. 

Disc. VIII.— On the Love of Money. 279 
" If I have made gold my hope, or have said 
to the fine gold, Thou art my confidence ; If I 
rejoiced because my wealth was great, and be- 
cause mine hand had gotten much ; If I beheld 
the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in 
brightness ; and my heart hath been secretly en- 
ticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand ; this 
also were an iniquity to be punished by the 
judge ; for I should have denied the God that is 
above." — Job xxxi. 24 — 28. 



SERMONS PREACHED IN ST. JOHN'S CHURCH, GLASGOW. 



Sermon I. — The Constancy of God in His Works 
an Argument for the Faithfulness of God in His 
Word. 371 

w For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in hea- 
ven , Thy faithfulness is unto all generations : 
thou hast established the earth, and it abideth. 
Tbey continue this day according to thy ordi- 
nances : for all are thy servants." — Psalm cxix. 
89, 90, 91. 

Serm. II. — The expulsive Power of a new Affec- 
tion. 381 

" Love not the world, neither the things that 
are in the world. If any man love the world, 
the love of the Father is not in him." — 1 John 
xi. 15. 

Serm. III. — The sure Warrant of a Believer's 
Hope. 388 

" For if, when we were enemies, we were re- 
conciled to God by the death of his Son , much 
more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his 
life." — Romans v. 10. 

Serm. IV. — The Restlessness of human Ambi- 
tion. 395 

"How say ye to my soul, Flee as a bird to 
your mountain ? — O that I had the wings of a 
dove, that I may fly away, and be at rest." — 
Psalm xi. 1. and Iv. 6. 



Serm. V. — The transitory Nature of visible 
Things. 399 

"The things that are seen are temporal." — 2 
Cor. iv. 18. 

Serm. VI. — On the Universality of spiritual Blind- 
ness. 404 

" Stay yourselves, and wonder , cry ye out, and 
cry : they are drunken, but not with wine ; they 
stagger, but not with strong drink. For the Lord 
hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep 
sleep, and hath closed your eyes ; the prophets 
and your rulers, the seers hath he covered. And 
the vision of all is become unto you as the words 
of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to 
one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray 
thee : and he saith, I cannot ; for it is sealed. 
And the book is delivered to him that is not 
learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee : and he 
saith, I am not learned." — Isaiah xxix. 9 — 12. 

Serm. VII. — On the new Heavens and the new 
Earth. - m 411 

" Nevertheless we, according to his promise 
look for new heavens and a new earth wherein 
dwelleth righteousness." — 2 Peter iii. 13. 

Serm. VIII— The Nature of the Kingdom of 
God. 417 



CONTENTS. 



V 



" For the kingdom of God is not in word, but 
in power." — 1 Cor. iv. 20. 
Serm. IX. — On the Reasonableness of Faith. 423 

" But before faith came, we were kept under 
the law, shut up unto the faith which should 
afterwards be revealed." — Gal. iii. 23. 
Serm. X. On the Christian Sabbath. 429 

" And he said unto them, The Sabbath was 
made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." — 
Mark ii. 27. 

Serm. XI. — On the Doctrine of Predestination. 435 
" And now I exhort you to be of good cheer : 
for there shall be no loss of any man's life among 
you, but of the ship. Paul said to the centurion 
and to the soldiers, Except these abide in the 
ship, ye cannot be saved." — Acts xxvii. 22, 31. 

Serm. XII. — On the Nature of the Sin against the 
Holy Ghost. 442 

"Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin 
and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men; but the 
blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be 



forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a 
word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven 
him : but whosoever speaketh against the Holy 
Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this 
world, neither in the world to come." — Matth. 
xii. 31, 32. 

Serm. XIII. — On the Advantages of Christian 
Knowledge to the Lower Orders of Society. 450 

" Better is a poor and a wise child than an old 
and foolish King, who will no more be admo- 
nished." — Eccl. iv. 13. 

Serm. XIV.— On the Duty and the Means of 
Christianizing our Home Population. 455 

" And he said unto them, Go ye into all the 
world, and preach the Gospel to every crea- 
ture." — Mark xvi. 15. 

Serm. XV. — On the Distinction between Know- 
ledge and Consideration, 460 

"The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his 
master's crib : but Israel doth not know, my peo- 
ple doth not consider." — Isaiah i. 3. 



OCCASIONAL 

A Sermon before the Society for Relief of the de- 
stitute Sick. 286 

" Blessed is he that considereth the poor ; the 
Lord will deliver him in time of trouble." — 
Psalm xli. 1. 

Sermon. — Thoughts on universal Peace. 295 
" Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, 
neither shall they learn war any more." — Isaiah 
xi. 4. 

The Duty of giving an immediate Diligence to 
the Business of the Christian Life. — An Address 
to the inhabitants of the Parish of Kilmany. 304 

The Influence of Bible Societies on the temporal 
Necessities of the Poor. 320 

Sermon. — A Sermon preached before the Society 
in Scotland for propagating Christian Know- 
ledge. 331 

" And Nathaniel said unto him, Can there any 
good thing come out of Nazareth ? Philip saith 
unto him, come and see." — John i. 46. 



SERMONS, &c. 

Sermon.— A Sermon delivered on the Day of the 
Funeral of the Princess Charlotte of Wales. 339 

" For when thy judgments are in the earth, the 
inhabitants of the world will learn righteous- 
ness." — Isaiah xxvi. 9. 

Sermon. — The Doctrine of Christian Charity ap- 
plied to the Case of Religious Differences. 350 

" And why beholdest thou the mote that is in 
thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam 
that is in thine own eye? — Or how wilt thou say 
to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of 
thine eye ; and behold a beam is in thine own 
eye ? Thou hypocrite ! first cast out the beam 
out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see 
clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's 
eye.". — Matth. vii 3, 4, 5. 

A Sermon on Cruelty to Animals. 361 
" A righteous man regardeth the life of his 
beast." — Prov. xii. 10. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



The contents of the first part of this volume form the substance of the article 
Christianity, in the Edinburgh Encyclopedia. Its appearance is due to the 
liberality of the Proprietors of that Work — nor did the Author conceive the pur- 
pose of presenting it to the world in another shape, till he was permitted and 
advised by them to republish it in a separate form. It is chiefly confined to the 
exposition of the historical argument for the truth of Christianity ; and the aim 
of the Author is fulfilled if he has succeeded in proving the external testimony 
to be so sufficient, as to leave Infidelity without excuse, even though the remain- 
ing important branches of the Christian defence had been less strong and satis- 
factory than they are. " The works that I do in my Father's name, they bear 
witness of me." "And if I had not done the works among them which none 
other man did, they had not had sin." 

The Author is far from asserting the study of the historical evidence to be the 
only channel to a faith in the truth of Christianity. How could he, in the face 
of the obvious fact, that there are thousands and thousands of Christians, who 
bear the most undeniable marks of the truth having come home to their under- 
standing "in demonstration of the Spirit and of power?" They have an 
evidence within themselves, which the world knoweth not, even the promised 
manifestations of the Saviour. This evidence is a " sign to them that believe ;" 
but the Bible speaks also of a " sign to them which believe not;" and should it 
be effectual in reclaiming any of these from their infidelity, a mighty object is 
gained by the exhibition of it. Should it not be effectual, it will be to them " a 
savour of death unto death ;" and this is one of the very effects ascribed to the 
proclamation of Christian truth in the first ages. If, even in the face of that 
kind of evidence, which they have a relish and respect for, they still hold out 
against the reception of the Gospel, this must aggravate the weight of the 
threatening which lies upon them; "How shall they escape, if they neglect so 
great a salvation ?" 

It will be a great satisfaction to the writer of the following pages, if any shall 
rise from the perusal of them with a stronger determination than before to take 
his Christianity exclusively from his Bible. It is not enough to entitle a man to 
the name of a Christian, that he professes to believe the Bible to be a genuine 
communication from God. To be the disciple of any book, he must do something 
more than satisfy himself that its contents are true — he must read the book — he 
must obtain a knowledge of the contents. And how many are there in the world, 
who do not call the truth of the Bible message in question, while they suffer i 
to lie beside them unopened, unread, and unattended to ! 

7 



• 



f 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 



CHAPTER I. 

On the Principles of Historical Evidence, and their Application to the Question 
of the Truth of Christianity. 



Were a verbal communication to come 
to us from a person at a distance, there are 
two ways in which we might try to satisfy 
ourselves, that this was a true communica- 
tion, and that there was no imposition in 
the affair. We might either sit in examina- 
tion upon the substance of the message; 
and then from what we knew of the person 
from whom it professed to come, judge 
whether it was probable that such a mes- 
sage would be sent by him ; or we may sit 
in examination upon the credibility of the 
messengers. 

It is evident, that in carrying on the first 
examination, we might be subject to very 
great uncertainty. The professed author 
of the communication in question may live 
at such a distance from us, that we may 
never have it in our power to verify his mes- 
sage by any personal conversation with him. 
We may be so far ignorant of his character 
and designs, as to be unqualified to judge 
of the kind of communication that should 
proceed from him. To estimate aright ihe 
probable authenticity of the message from 
what we know of its author, would require 
an acquaintance with his plans, and views, 
and circumstances, of which we may not 
be in possession. We may bring the great- 
est degree of sagacity to this investigation ; 
but then the highest sagacity is of no avail, 
when there is an unsufficiency of data. Our 
ingenuity may be unbounded ; but then we 
may want the materials. The principle 
which we assume may be untrue in itself, 
and therefore may be fallacious in its appli- 
cation. 

Thus, we may derive very little light 
from our first argument. But" there is still 
a second in reserve, — the credibility of the 
messengers. We may be no judges of the 
kind of communication which is natural, or 
likely to proceed from a person with whom 
we are but imperfectly acquainted ; but we 
may be very competent judges of the degree 
of faith that is to be reposed in the bearers 



of that communication. W T e may know and 
appreciate the natural signs of veracity. 
There is a tone, and a manner character- 
istic of honesty, which may be both intel- 
ligible and convincing. There may be a 
concurrence of several messengers. There 
may be their substantial agreement. There 
may be the total want of any thing like 
concert or collusion among them. There 
may be their determined and unanimous 
perseverance, in spite of all the incredulity 
and all the opposition which they meet 
with. The subject of the communication 
may be most unpalatable to us; and we 
may be so unreasonable, as to wreak our 
unpleasant feeling upon the bearers of it. In 
this way, they may not only have no earthly 
interest to deceive us, but have the strongest 
inducement possible to abstain from insisting 
upon that message which they were charged 
to deliver. Last of all, as the conclusive seal 
of their authenticity, they may all agree in 
giving us a watchword, which we previously 
knew could be given by none but their mas- 
ter; and which none but his messengers 
could ever obtain the possession of. In this 
way, unfruitful as all our efforts may have 
been upon the first subject of examination, 
we may derive from the second the most 
decisive evidence, that the message in ques- 
tion is a real message, and was actually 
transmitted to us by its professed author. 

Now, this consideration applies in all its 
parts to a message from God. The argu- 
ment for the truth of this message resolves 
itself into the same two topics of examina- 
tion. We may sit in judgment upon the 
subject of the message ; or we may sit in 
judgment upon the credibility of its bearers. 

The first forms a great part of that ar- 
gument for the truth of the Christian reli- 
gion, which comes under the head of its 
internal evidences. The substance of the 
message is neither more nor less, than that 
particular scheme of the divine economy 
which is revealed to us in the New Testa- 

9 



10 



PRINCIPLES OF HISTORICAL EVIDENCE. 



[chap 



tament; and the point of inquiry is, whether 
this scheme be consistent with that know- 
ledge of God and his attributes which we 
are previously in possession of? 

It appears to many, that no effectual ar- 
gument can be founded upon this consider- 
ation, because they do not count themselves 
enough acquainted with the designs or cha- 
racter of the being from whom the message 
professes to have come. Were the author 
of the message some distant and unknown 
individual of our own species, we would 
scarcely be entitled to found an argument 
upon any comparison of ours, betwixt the 
import of the message and the character of 
the individual, even though we had our 
general experience of human nature to help 
us in the speculation. Now, of the invisible 
God, we have no experience whatever. We 
are still further removed from all direct and 
personal observation of him or of his coun- 
sels. Whether we think of the eternity of 
his government, or the mighty range of its 
influence over the wide departments of na- 
ture and providence, he stands at such a dis- 
tance from us, as to make the management 
of his empire a subject inaccessible to all 
our faculties. 

It is evident, however, that this does not 
apply to the second topic of examination. 
The bearers of the message were beings like 
ourselves ; and we can apply our safe and 
certain experience of man to their conduct 
and testimony. We may know too little 
of God, to found any argument upon the 
coincidence which we conceive to exist be- 
tween the subject of the message and our 
previous conceptions of its author. But we 
may know enough of man to pronounce 
upon the credibility of the messengers. 
Had they the manner and physiognomy of 
honest men ? Was their testimony resisted, 
and did they persevere in it ? Had they 
any interest in fabricating the message ; or 
did they suffer in consequence of this per- 
severance ? Did they suffer to such a de- 
gree, as to constitute a satisfying pledge of 
their integrity ? Was there more than one 
messenger, and did they agree as to the 
substance of that communication which 
they made to the world ? Did they exhibit 
any special mark of their office as the mes- 
sengers of God ; such a mark as none but 
God could give, and none but his approved 
messengers could obtain the possession of? 
Was this mark the power of working mira- 
cles; and were these miracles so obviously 
addressed to the senses, as to leave no sus- 
picion of deceit behind them ? These are 
questions which we feel our competency to 
take up, and to decide upon. They lie with- 
in the legitimate boundaries of human obser- 
vation ; and upon the solution of these do 
we rest the question of the truth of the 
Christian religion. 

This, then, is the state of the question 



with those to whom the message was origi 
nally addressed. They had personal ac- 
cess to the messengers; and the evidences oi 
their veracity lay before them. They were 
the eye and ear-witnesses of those facts 
which occurred at the commencement of 
the Christian religion, and upon which its 
credibility rests. What met their observa- 
tion must have been enough to satisfy them ; 
but we live at the distance of nearly 2000 
years, and is there enough to satisfy us 1 
Those facts, which constitute the evidence 
for Christianity, might have been credible 
and convincing to them, if they really saw 
them ; but is there any way by which they 
can be rendered credible and convincing to 
us, who only read of them ? What is the 
expedient by which the knowledge and be- 
lief of the men of other times can be trans- 
mitted to posterity? Can we distinguish 
between a corrupt and a faithful transmis- 
sion ? Have we evidence before us, by 
which we can ascertain what was the belief 
of those to whom the message was first 
communicated ? And can the belief which 
existed in their minds be derived to ours, 
by our sitting in judgment upon the rea- 
sons which produced it ? 

The surest way in which the belief and 
knowledge of the men of former ages can 
be transmitted to their descendants, is 
through the medium of written testimony ; 
and it is fortunate for us, that the records 
of the Christian religion are not the only 
historical documents which have come down 
to us. A great variety of information has 
come down to us in this way ; and a great 
part of that information is as firmly believ- 
ed, and as confidently proceeded upon, as 
if the thing narrated had happened with- 
in the limits of our eye-sight. No man 
doubts the invasion of Britain by Julius 
Caesar ; and no man doubts, therefore, that 
a conviction of the truth of past events may 
be fairly produced in the mind by the in- 
strumentality of a written memorial. This 
is the kind of evidence which is chiefly ap- 
pealed to for the truth of ancient history ; 
and it is counted satisfying evidence for all 
that part of it, which is received and de- 
pended upon. 

In laying before the reader, then, the evi- 
dence for the truth of Christianity, we do 
not call his mind to any singular or unpre- 
cedented exercises of its faculties. We call 
him to pronounce upon the credibility of 
written documents, which profess to have 
been published at a certain age, and by cer- 
tain authors. The inquiry involves in it no 
principle which is not appealed to every day 
in questions of ordinary criticism. To sit 
in judgment on the credibility of a written 
document, is a frequent and familiar exer- 
cise of the understanding with literary men. 
It is fortunate for the human mind, when 
so interesting a question as its religious faith 



PRINCIPLES OF HISTORICAL EVIDENCE. 



11 



can be placed under the tribunal of such 
evidence as it is competent to pronounce 
upon. It w as fortunate for those to whom 
Christianity (a professed communication 
from heaven) was first addressed, that they 
could decide upon the genuineness of the 
communication by such familiar and every- 
day principles, as the marks of truth or false- 
hood in the human bearers of that commu- 
nication. And it is fortunate for us that 
when, after that communication has assu- 
med the form of a historical document, we 
can pronounce upon the degree of credit 
which should be attached to it, by the very 
same exercise of mind wilich we so confi- 
dently engage in, when sitting in examina- 
tion upon the other historical documents 
that have come down to us from antiquity. 

If two historical documents possess equal 
degrees of evidence, they should produce 
equal degrees of conviction. But if the ob- 
ject of the one be to establish some fact 
connected with our religious faith, while the 
object of the other is to establish some fact, 
about which we feel no other interest than 
that general curiosity which is gratified by 
the solution of any question in literature, 
this difference in the object produces a dif- 
ference of effect in the feelings and tenden- 
cies of the mind. It is impossible for the 
mind, while it inquires into the evidence of 
a Christian document, to abstain from all 
reference to the important conclusion of the 
inquiry. And this will necessarily mingle 
its influence with the arguments which en- 
gage its attention. It may be of importance 
to attend to the peculiar feelings which are 
thus given to the investigation, and in how- 
far they have affected the impression of the 
Christian argument. 

We know it to be the opinion of some, 
that in this w T ay an undue advantage has 
been given to that argument. Instead of a 
pure question of truth, it has been made a 
question of sentiment; and the washes of the 
heart have mingled with the exercises of 
the understanding. There is a class of men 
who may feel disposed to overrate its eviden- 
ces, because they are anxious to give every 
support and stability to a system, which 
they conceive to be most intimately connec- 
ted with the dearest hopes and wishes of 
humanity; because their imagination is 
carried away by the sublimity of its doc- 
trines, or their heart engaged by that amia- 
ble morality which is so much calculated to 
improve and adorn the face of society. 

Now we are ready to admit, that as the 
object of the inquiry is not the character, 
but the truth of Christianity, the philosopher 
should be careful to protect his mind from 
the delusion of its charms. He should sepa- 
rate the exercises of the understanding from 
the tendencies of the fancy or of the heart. 
He should be prepared to follow the light 
of evidence, though it may lead him to con- 



clusions the most painful and melancholy. 
He should train his mind to all the hardihood 
of abstract and unfeeling intelligence. He 
should give up every thing to the suprema- 
cy of argument, and be able to renounce, 
without a sigh, all the tenderest possessions 
of infancy, the moment that truth demands 
of him the sacrifice. Let it be remembered, 
however, that wiiile one species of preju- 
dice operates in favour of Christianity, 
another prejudice operates against it. There 
is a class of men who are repelled from the 
investigation of its evidences, because in 
their minds Christianity is allied with the 
weakness of superstition ; and they feel that 
they are descending when they bring down 
their attention to a subject which engrosses 
so much respect and admiration from the 
vulgar. 

It appears to us, that the peculiar feeling 
which the sacredness of the subject gives to 
the inquirer, is, upon the whole, unfavoura- 
ble to the impression of the Christian argu- 
ment. Had the subject not been sacred, and 
had the same testimony been given to the 
facts that are connected with it, we are sa- 
tisfied that the history of Jesus in the New 
Testament w T ould have been looked upon as 
the best supported by evidence of any his- 
tory that has come Sown to us. It would 
assist us in appreciating the evidence for 
the truth of the gospel history, if we could 
conceive for a moment, that Jesus, instead 
of being the founder of a new religion, had 
been merely the founder of a new school of 
philosophy, and that the different histories 
which have come down to us had merely 
represented him as an extraordinary person, 
who had rendered himself illustrious among 
his countrymen by the wisdom of his say- 
ings, and the beneficence of his actions. 
We venture to say, that had this been the 
case, a tenth part of the testimony which 
has actually been given, would have been 
enough to satisfy us. Had it been a ques- 
tion of mere erudition, where neither a pre- 
dilection in favour of a religion, nor an an- 
tipathy against it, could have impressed a 
bias in any one direction, the testimony, 
both in weight and in quantity, would have 
been looked upon as quite unexampled in 
the whole compass of ancient literature. 

To form a fair estimate of the strength 
and decisiveness of the Christian argument, 
we should, if possible, divest ourselves of all 
reference to religion, and view the truth of 
the gospel history, purely as a question of 
erudition. If at the outset of the investiga- 
tion we have a prejudice against the Chris- 
tian religion, the effect is obvious; and with- 
out any refinement of explanation, we see 
at once how such a prejudice must dispose 
us to annex suspicion and distrust to the 
testimony of the Christian writers. But 
even when the prejudice is on the side of 
Christianity, the effect is unfavourable on a 



m 



PRINCIPLES OF HISTORICAL EVIDENCE. 



[CHAP. 



mind that is at all scrupulous about the rec- 
titude of its opinions. In these circumstan- 
ces, the mind gets suspicious of itself. It 
feels a predilection, and becomes apprehen- 
sive lest this predilection may have disposed 
it to cherish a particular conclusion, inde- 
pendently of the evidences by which it is 
supported. Were it a mere speculative 
question, in which the interests of man, and 
the attachments of his heart had no share, 
he would feel greater confidence in the re- 
sult of his investigation. But it is difficult 
to separate the moral impressions of piety, 
and it is no less difficult to calculate their 
precise influence on the exercises of the un- 
derstanding. In the complex sentiment of 
attachment and conviction, which he an- 
nexes to the Christian religion, he finds it 
difficult to say, how much is due to the ten- 
dencies of the heart, and how much is due 
to the pure and unmingled influence of ar- 
gument. His very anxiety for the truth, 
disposes him to overrate the circumstances 
which give a bias to his understanding, and 
through the whole process of the inquiry, 
he feels a suspicion and an embarrassment, 
which he would not have felt, had it been 
a question of ordinary erudition. 

The same suspicion which he attaches to 
himself, he will be ready to attach to all 
whom he conceives to be in similar circum- 
stances. Now, every author who writes in 
defence of Christianity, is supposed to be 
a Christian ; and this, in spite of every argu- 
ment to the contrary, has the actual effect 
of weakening the impression of his testimo- 
ny. This suspicion effects, in a more re- 
markable degree, the testimony of the first 
writers on the side of Christianity. In op- 
position to it, you have no doubt, to allege 
the circumstances under which the testimo- 
ny was given ; the tone of sincerity which 
runs through the performance of the author; 
the concurrence of other testimonies ; the 
persecutions which were sustained in ad- 
hering to them, and which can be accounted 
for on no other principle, than the power 
of conscience and conviction; and the utter 
impossibility of imposing a false testimony 
on the world, had they even been disposed 
to do it. Still there is a lurking suspicion, 
which often survives this strength of all 
argument, and which it is difficult to get rid 
of, even after it has been demonstrated to 
be completely unreasonable. He is a Chris- 
tian. He is one of the party. Am I an in- 
fidel? I persist in distrusting the testimony. 
Am I a Christian'? I rejoice in the strength 
of it ; but this very joy becomes matter of 
suspicion to a scrupulous inquirer. He 
feels something more than the concurrence 
of his belief in the testimony of the writer. 
He catches the infection of his piety and his 
moral sentiments. In addition to the acqui- 
esence of the understanding, there is a con 
amove feeling both in himself, and in his 



author, which he had rather been without, 
because he finds it difficult to compute the 
precise amount of its influence ; and the 
consideration of this restrains him from that 
clear and decided conclusion, which he 
would infallibly have landed in, had it been 
purely a secular investigation. 

There is something in the very sacredness 
of the subject, which intimidates the under- 
standing, and restrains it from making the 
same firm and confident application of its 
faculties, which it would have felt itself 
perfectly warranted to do, had it been a 
question of ordinary history. Had the apos- 
tles been the disciples of some eminent phi- 
losopher, and the fathers of the church, their 
immediate successors in the office of presid- 
ing over the discipline and instruction of the 
numerous schools which they had establish- 
ed, this would have given a secular complex- 
ion to the argument, which we think would 
have been more satisfying to the mind, and 
have impressed upon it a closer and more 
familiar conviction of the history in question. 
We should have immediately brought it in- 
to comparison with the history of other phi- 
losophers, and could not have failed to re- 
cognize, that, in minuteness of information, 
in weight and quantity of evidence, in the 
concurrence of numerous and independent 
testimonies, and in the total absence of every 
circumstance that should dispose us to annex 
suspicion to the account which lay before 
us, it far surpassed any thing that had come 
down to us from antiquity. It so happens, 
however, that, instead of being the history of 
a philosopher, it is the history of a prophet. 
The veneration we annex to the sacredness 
of such a character, mingles with our belief 
in the truth of his history. From a question 
of simple truth, it becomes a question in 
which the heart is interested ; and the sub- 
ject from that moment assumes a certain 
holiness and mystery, which veil the strength 
of the argument, and takes off from that fa- 
miliar and intimate conviction which we 
annex to the far less authenticated histories 
of profane authors. 

It may be further observed, that every 
part of the Christian argument has been 
made to undergo a most severe scrutiny. 
The same degree of evidence which in 
questions of ordinary history commands the 
easy and universal acquiescence of every 
inquirer, has, in the subject before us, been 
taken most thoroughly to pieces, and pur- 
sued, both by friends and enemies, into all 
its ramifications. The effect of this is unques- 
tionable. The genuineness and authenticity 
of the profane historian, are admitted upon 
much inferior evidence to what we can ad- 
duce for the different pieces which make up 
the New Testament. And why ? Because 
the evidence has been hitherto thought suf- 
ficient, and the genuineness and authenticity 
have never been questioned. Not so with 



PRINCIPLES OF HISTORICAL EVIDENCE. 



13 



the Gospel history. Though its evidence is 
precisely the same in kind, and vastly supe- 
rior in degree to the evidence for the history 
of the profane writer, its evidence has been 
questioned, and the very circumstance of its 
being questioned has annexed a suspicion to 
it. At all points of the question, there has 
been a struggle and a controversy. Every 
ignorant objection, and every rash and petu- 
lant observation, has been taken up and 
commented upon by the defenders of Chris- 
tianity. There has at last been so much said 
about it, that a general feeling of insecurity is 
apt to accompany the whole investigation. 
There has been so much fighting, that Chris- 
tianity now is looked upon as debatable 
ground. Other books, where the evidence 
is much inferior, but which have had the ad- 
vantage of never being questioned, are re- 
ceived as of established authority. It is 
striking to observe the perfect confidence 
with which an infidel will quote a passage 
from an ancient historian. He perhaps does 
not overrate the credit due to him. But 
present him with a tabellated and compara- 
tive view of all the evidences that can be 
adduced for the gospel of Matthew, and any 
profane historian, which he chooses to fix 
upon, and let each distinct evidence be dis- 
cussed upon no other principle than the 
ordinary and approved principles of criti- 
cism, we assure him that the sacred history 
would far outweigh the profane in the num- 
ber and value of its testimonies. 

In illustration of the above remarks, we 
can refer to the experience of those who have 
attended to this examination. We ask them 
to recollect the satisfaction which they felt, 
when they came to those parts of the ex- 
amination, where the argument assumes a 
secular complexion. Let us take the testi- 
mony of Tacitus for an example. He as- 
serts the execution of our Saviour in the 
reign of Tiberius, and under the procurator- 
ship of Pilate ; the temporary check, which 
this gave to his religion ; its revival, and the 
progress it had made, not only over Judea, 
but to the city of Rome. Now all this is 
att sted in the Annals of Tacitus. But it is 
also attested in a far more direct and cir- 
cumstantial manner in the annals of another 
author, in a book entitled the History of the 
Acts of the Apostles by the Evangelist 
Luke. Both of these performances carry 
on the very face of them the appearance of 
unsuspicious and well-authenticated docu- 
ments. But there are several circumstances, 
in which the testimony of Luke possesses a 
decided advantage over the testimony of 
Tacitus. He was the companion of these 
very apostles. He was an eye witness to 
many of the events recorded by him. He 
had the advantage over the Roman historian 
in time and in place, and in personal know- 
ledge of many of the circumstances in his 
history. The genuineness of his publica- 



tion, too, and the time of its appearance, are 
far better established, and by precisely that 
kind of argument which is held decisive in 
every other question of erudition. Besides 
all this, we have the testimony of at least 
five of the Christian fathers, all of whom had 
the same, or a greater, advantage in point of 
time than Tacitus, and who had a much 
nearer and readier access to original sources 
of information. Now, how comes it that the 
testimony of Tacitus, a distant and later his- 
torian, should yield such delight and satisfac- 
tion to the inquirer, while all the antecedent 
testimony (which, by every principle of ap- 
proved criticism, is much stronger than the 
other) should produce an impression that is 
comparatively languid and ineffectual? It 
is owing, in a great measure, to the principle 
to which we have already alluded. There 
is a sacredness annexed to the subject, so 
long as it is under the pen of fathers and 
evangelists, and this very sacredness takes 
away from the freedom and confidence of 
the argument. The moment that it is taken 
up by a profane author, the spell which held 
the understanding in some degree of restraint 
is dissipated. We now tread on the more 
familiar ground of ordinary history ; and the 
evidence for the truth of the Gospel appears 
more assimilated to that evidence, which 
brings home to our conviction the particu- 
lars Of the Greek and Roman story. 

To say that Tacitus was upon this subject 
a disinterested historian, is not enough to 
explain the preference which you give to 
his testimony. There is no subject in which 
the triumph of the Christian argument is 
more conspicuous, than the moral qualifica- 
tions which give credit to the testimony of 
its witnesses. We have every possible evi- 
dence, that there could be neither mistake 
nor falsehood in their testimony : a much 
greater quantity of evidence, indeed, than 
can actually be produced to establish the 
credibility of any other historian. Now all 
we ask is, that where an exception to the 
veracity of any historian is removed, you 
restore him to that degree of credit and in- 
fluence which he ought to have possessed, 
had no such exception been made. In no 
case has an exception to the credibility of an 
author been more triumphantly removed, 
than in the case of the early Christian 
writers ; and yet, as a proof that there really 
exists some such delusion as we have been 
labouring to demonstrate, though our eyes 
are perfectly open to the integrity of the 
Christian witnesses, there is still a disposi- 
tion to give the preference to the secular his- 
torian. When Tacitus is placed by the side 
of the evangelist Luke, even after the de- 
cisive argument, which establishes the credit 
of the latter historian has convinced the un- 
derstanding, there remains a tendency in the 
mind to annex a confidence to the account 
of the Roman writer, which is altogether 



14 



PRINCIPLES OF HISTORICAL EVIDENCE. 



[CHAP. 



disproportioned to the relative merits of his 
testimony. 

Let us suppose, for the sake of farther il- 
lustration, that Tacitus had included some 
more particulars in his testimony, and that, 
in addition to the execution of our Saviour, 
he had asserted, in round and unqualified 
terms, that this said Christus had risen from 
the dead, and was seen alive by some hun- 
dreds of his acquaintances. Even this would 
not have silenced altogether the cavils of 
enemies, but it would have reclaimed many 
an infidel ; been exulted in by many a sin- 
cere Christian ; and made to occupy a fore- 
most place in many a book upon the eviden- 
ces of our religion. Are we to forget all the 
while, that we are in actual possession of 
much stronger testimony ? that we have the 
concurrence of eight or ten contemporary 
authors, most of whom had actually seen 
Christ after the great event of his resurrec- 
tion ? that the veracity of these authors, and 
the genuineness of their respective publi- 
cations, are established on grounds much 
stronger than have ever been alleged in be- 
half of Tacitus, or any ancient author? 
Whence this unaccountable preference of 
Tacitus? Upon every received principle of 
criticism, we are bound to annex greater con- 
fidence to the testimony of the apostles. It 
is vain to recur to the imputation of its being 
an interested testimony. This the apologists 
for Christianity undertake to disprove, and 
actually have disproved it, and that by a much 
greater quantity of evidence than would be 
held perfectly decisive in a question of 
common history. If after this there should 
remain any lurking sentiment of diffidence 
or suspicion, it is entirely resolvable into 
some such principle as I have already alluded 
to. It is to be treated as a mere feeling, — a 
delusion which should not be admitted to 
have any influence on the convictions of the 
understanding. 

The principle which we have been at- 
tempting to expose, is found, in fact, to run 
through every part of the argument, and to 
accompany the inquirer through all the 
branches of the investigation. The authen- 
ticity of the different books of the New 
Testament forms a very important inquiry, 
wherein the object of the Christian Apolo- 
gist is to prove, that they were really written 
by their professed authors. In proof of this, 
there is an uninterrupted series of testimony 
from the days of the apostles ; and it was not 
to be expected, that a point so isoteric to the 
Christian society could have attracted the 
attention of profane authors, till the religion 
of Jesus, by its progress in the world, had 
rendered itself conspicuous. It is not then 
till about eighty years after the publication 
of the different pieces, that we meet with the 
testimony of Celsus, an avowed enemy to 
Christianity, and who asserts, upon the 
strength of its general notoriety, that the 



historical parts of the New Testament were 
written by the disciples of our Saviour. This 
is very decisive evidence. But how does it 
happen, that it should throw a clearer gleam 
of light and satisfaction over the mind of 
the inquirer, than he had yet experienced 
in the whole train of his investigation? 
Whence that disposition to underrate the 
antecedent testimony of the Christian wri- 
ters? Talk not of theirs being an inte- 
rested testimony ; for, in point of fact, the 
same disposition operates, after reason is 
convinced that the suspicion is totally un- 
founded. What w T e contend for is, that this 
indifference to the testimony of the Chris- 
tian writers implies a dereliction of princi- 
ples, which apply with the utmost confi- 
dence to all similar inquiries. 

The effects of this same principle are per- 
fectly discernible in the writings of even 
our most judicious apologists. We offer no 
reflection against the assiduous Lardner, 
who, in his credibility of the Gospel history, 
presents us with a collection of testimonies 
which should make every Christian proud 
of his religion. In his evidence for the au- 
thenticity of the different pieces which make 
up the New Testament, he begins with the 
oldest of the fathers, some of whom were 
the intimate companions of the original 
writers. According to our view of the 
matter, he should have dated the commence- 
ment of his argument from a higher point, 
and begun with the testimonies of these 
original writers to one another. In the 
second Epistle of Peter, there is a distinct 
reference made to the writings of Paul ; and 
in the Acts of the Apostles, there is a re- 
ference made to one of the four Gospels. 
Had Peter, instead of being an apostle, rank- 
ed only with the fathers of the church, and 
had his epistle not been admitted into the 
canon of scripture, this testimony of his 
would have had a place in the catalogue, 
and been counted peculiarly valuable, both 
for its precision and its antiquity. There is 
certainly nothing in the estimation he en- 
joyed, or in the circumstances of his epistle 
being bound up with the other books of the 
New Testement, which ought to impair the 
credit of his testimony. But in effect, his tes- 
timony does make a weaker impression on 
the mind, than a similar testimony from 
Barnabas, or Clement, or Polycarp. It 
certainly ought not to do it, and there is a 
delusion in the preference that is thus given 
to the latter writers. It is in fact, another 
example of the principle which we have 
been so often insisting upon. What profane 
authors are in reference to Christian authors 
at large, the fathers of the church are in re- 
ference to the original writers of the New 
Testament. In contradiction to every ap- 
proved principle, we prefer the distant and 
later testimony, to the testimony of writers 
who carry as much evidence and legitimate 



I.] PRINCIPLES OF HIS 

authority along with them, and who only 
differ from others in being nearer the origi- 
nal source of information. We neglect and 
undervalue the evidence which the New 
Testament itseK furnishes, and rest the 
whole of the argument upon the external 
and superinduced testimony of subsequent 
authors. 

A great deal of all this is owing to the 
manner in which the defence of Christianity 
has been conducted by its friends and sup- 
porters. They have given too much into 
the suspicions of the opposite party. They 
have yielded their minds to the infection of 
their skepticism, and maintained, through 
the whole process, a caution and a delicacy 
which they often carry to a degree that is 
excessive ; and by which, in fact, they have 
done injustice to their own arguments. 
Some of them begin with the testimony of 
Tacitus as a first principle, and pursue the 
investigation upwards, as if the evidence 
that we collect from the annals of the Ro- 
man historian were stronger than that of 
the Christian writers who nourished nearer 
the scene of the investigation, and whose 
credibility can be established on groimds 
which are altogether independent of his 
testimony. In this way, they come at last 
to the credibility of the New Testament 
writers, but by a lengthened and circuitous 
procedure. The reader feels as if the argu- 
ment were diluted at every step in the pro- 
cess of derivation, and his faith in the Gos- 
pel history is much weaker than his faith 
in histories that are far less authenticated. 
Bring Tacitus and the New Testament to an 
immediate comparison, and subject them 
both to the touchstone of ordinary and re- 
ceived principles, and it will be found that 
the latter leaves the former out of sight in 
all the marks, and characters, and evidences 
of an authentic history. The truth of the 
Gospel stands on a much firmer and more 
independent footing, than many of its de- 
fenders would dare to give us any concep- 
tion of. They want that boldness of argu- 
ment which the merits of the question 
entitle them to assume. They ought to 
maintain a more decided front to their ad- 
versaries, and tell them, that, in the New 
Testament itself— in the concurrence of its 
numerous, and distant, and independent 
authors — in the uncontradicted authority 
which it has maintained from the earliest 
times of the church — in the total inability 
of the bitterest adversaries of our religion 
to impeach its credibility — in the genuine 
characters of honesty and fairness which it 
carries on the very face of it; that in these, 
and in every thing else, which can give va- 
lidity to the written history of past times, 
there is a weight and a splendour of evi- 
dence, which the testimony of Tacitus can- 
not confirm, and which the absence of that 
testimony could not have diminished. 



rORICAL EVIDENCE. 15 

If it were necessary in a court of justice 
to ascertain the circumstances of a certain 
transaction which happened in a particular 
neighbourhood, the obvious expedient would 
be to examine the agents and eye-witnesses 
of that transaction. If six or eight concur- 
red in giving the same testimony — if there 
was no appearance of collusion among 
them — if they had the manner and aspect 
of creditable men — above all, if this testimo- 
ny were made public, and not a single indi- 
vidual, from the numerous spectators of the 
transaction alluded to, step forward to falsify 
it, then, we apprehend, the proof would be 
looked upon as complete. Other witnesses 
might be summoned from a distance to give 
in their testimony, not of what they saw, 
but of what they heard upon the subject ; 
but their concurrence, though a happy 
enough circumstance, would never be look- 
ed upon as any material addition to the evi- 
dence already brought forward. Another 
court of justice might be held in a distant 
country, and years after the death of the ori- 
ginal witnesses. It might have occasion to 
verify the same transaction, and for this 
purpose might call in the only evidence 
which it was capable of collecting — the tes- 
timony of men who lived after the transac- 
tion in question, and at a great distance from 
the place where it happened. There would 
be no hesitation, in ordinary cases, about 
the relative value of the two testimonies ; 
and the record of the first court could be 
appealed to by posterity as by far the more 
valuable document, and far more decisive 
of the point in controversy. Now, what we 
complain of, is, that in the instance before 
us this principle is reversed. The report of 
hearsay witnesses is held in higher estima- 
tion than the report of the original agents 
and spectators. The most implicit credit is 
given to the testimony of the distant and 
later historians, and the testimony of the 
original witnesses is received with as 
much distrust as if they carried the marks 
of villany and imposture upon their fore- 
heads. The genuineness of the first record 
can be established by a much greater weight 
and variety of evidence, than the genuine- 
ness of the second. Yet all the suspicion 
that we feel upon this subject annexes to 
the former ; and the apostles and evangel- 
ists, with every evidence in their favour 
which it is in the power of testimony to 
furnish, are, in fact, degraded from the place 
which they ought to occupy among the ac- 
credited historians of past times. 

The above observations may help to pre- 
pare the inquirer for forming a just and im- 
partial estimate of the merits of the Chris- 
tian testimony. His great object should be 
to guard against every bias of the under- 
standing. The general idea is, that a pre- 
dilection in favour of Christianity may lead 
him to overrate the argument. We believe 



16 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



[CHAP. 



that if every unfair tendency of the mind 
could be subjected to a rigorous computa- 
tion, it would be found, that the combined 
operation of them all has the effect of im- 
pressing a bias in a contrary direction. All 
we wish for, is, that the arguments which are 
held decisive in other historical questions, 



should not be looked upon as nugatory when 
applied to the investigation of those facts 
which are connected with the truth and 
establishment of the Christian religion, that 
every prepossession should be swept away, 
and room left for the understanding, to expa- 
tiate without fear, and without incumbrance. 



CHAPTER II. 

On the Authenticity of the different Books of the New Testament. 



The argument for the truth of the differ- 
ent facts recorded in the gospel history, re- 
solves itself into four parts. In the first, it 
shall be our object to prove, that the differ- 
ent pieces which make up the New Testa- 
ment, were written by the authors whose 
names they bear, and the age which is com- 
monly assigned to them. In the second, we 
shall exhibit the internal marks of truth and 
honesty, which may be gathered from the 
compositions themselves. In the third, we 
shall press upon the reader the known situa- 
tion and history of the authors, as satisfy- 
ing proofs of the veracity with which they 
delivered themselves. And, in the fourth, 
we shall lay before them the additional 
and subsequent testimonies, by which the 
narrative of the original writers is sup- 
ported. 

In every point of the investigation, we shall 
meet with examples of the principle which 
we have already alluded to. We have said, 
that if two distinct inquiries be set on foot, 
where the object of the one is to settle some 
point of sacred history, and the object of 
the other is to settle some point of profane 
history, the mind acquiesces in a much 
smaller quantity of evidence in the latter 
case than it does in the former. If this be 
right, (and to a certain degree it undoubt- 
edly is,) then it is incumbent on the defen- 
der of Christianity to bring forward a greater 
quantity of evidence than would be deemed 
sufficient in a question of common litera- 
ture, and to demand the acquiescence of his 
reader upon the strength of this superior 
evidence. If it be not right beyond a cer- 
tain degree — and if there be a tendency in 
the mind to carry it beyond that degree, 
then this tendency is founded upon a delu- 
sion, and it is well that the reader should be 
apprised of its existence, that he may pro- 
tect himself from its influence. The supe- 
rior quantity of evidence which we can 
bring forward, will, in this case, all go to 
augment the positive effect upon his con- 
victions ; and he will rejoice to perceive 
that he is far safer in believing what has 
been handed down to him of the history of 
Jesus Christ, and the doctrine of his apos- 



tles, than in believing what he has never 
doubted — the history of Alexander, and the 
doctrine of Socrates. Could all the marks 
of veracity, and the list of subsequent testi- 
monies, be exhibited to the eye of the read- 
er in parallel columns, it would enable him, 
at one glance, to form a complete estimate. 
We shall have occasion to call his attention 
to this so often, that we may appear to many 
of our readers to have expatiated upon our 
introductory principle to a degree that is 
tiresome and unnecessary. We conceive, 
however, that it is the best and most per- 
spicuous way of putting the argument. 

I. The different pieces which make up 
the New Testament, were written by the 
authors whose names they bear, and at the 
time which is commonly assigned to them. 

After the long slumber of the middle ages, 
the curiosity of the human mind was 
awakened, and felt its attention powerfully 
directed to those old writings, which have 
survived the waste of so many centuries. 
It were a curious speculation to ascertain 
the precise quantity of evidence which lay 
in the information of these old documents. 
And it may help us in our estimate, first to 
suppose, that in the researches of that 
period, there was only one composition 
found which professed to be a narrative of 
past times. A number of circumstances can 
be assigned, which might give a certain de- 
gree of probability to the information even 
of this sohtary and unsupported document. 
There si, first, the general consideration, 
that the principle upon which a man feels 
himself induced to write *i true history, is 
of more frequent and powerful operation, 
than the principle upon which a man feels 
himself induced to offer a false or a disguised 
representation of facts to the world. This 
affords a general probability on the side of 
the document in question being a true narra- 
tive; and there may be some particulars 
connected with the appearance of the per- 
formance itself, which might strengthen 
this probability. We may not be able to 
discover in the story itself any inducement 
which the man could have in publishing it, 
if it were mainly and substantially false 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



17 



We might see an expression of honesty, 
which it is in the power of written lan- 
guage, as well as of spoken language, to 
convey. We might see that there was no- 
thing "monstrous or improbable in the nar- 
rative itself. And, without enumerating 
every particular calculated to give it the 
impression of truth, we may, in the pro- 
gress of our inquiries, have ascertained, that 
copies of this manuscript were to be found 
in many places, and in different parts of the 
world, proving, by the evidence of its dif- 
fusion, the general esteem in which it was 
held by the readers of past ages. This gives 
us the testimony of these readers to the value 
of the performance ; and as we are suppos- 
ing it is a history, and not a work of ima- 
gination, it could only be valued on the prin- 
ciple of the information which was laid be- 
fore them being true. In this way a solitary 
document, transmitted to us from a* remote 
antiquity, might gain credit in the world, 
though it had been lost sight of for many 
ages, and only brought to light by the revi- 
val of a literary spirit, which had lain dor- 
mant during a long period of history. 

We can further suppose, that in the pro- 
gress of these researches, another manu- 
script was discovered, having the same cha- 
racters, and possessing the same separate 
and original marks of truth with the former. 
If they both touched upon the same period 
of history, and gave testimony to the same 
events, it is plain that a stronger evidence 
for the truth of these events wotdd be afford- 
ed, than what it was in the power of either 
of the testimonies taken separately to sup- 
ply. The separate circumstances which 
gave a distinct credibility to each of the 
testimonies are added together, and give also 
much higher credibility to those points of in- 
formation upon which they deliver a com- 
mon testimony. This is the case when the 
testimonies carry in them the appearance of 
being independent of one another. And even 
when the one is derived from the other, it 
still affords an accession to the evidence ; 
because the author of the subsequent testi- 
mony gives us the distinct assertion, that he 
believed in the truth of the original testi- 
mony. 

The evidence may be strengthened still 
farther, by the accession of a third manu- 
script, and a third testimony. All the sepa- 
rate circumstances which confer credibility 
upon any one document,, even though it 
stands alone and unsupported by any other, 
combine themselves into a much stronger 
body of evidence, when we have obtained 
the concurrence of several. If, even in the 
case of a single narrative, a probability lies 
on the side of its being true, from the mul- 
titude and diffusion of copies, and from the 
air of truth and honesty discernible in the 
composition itself, the probability is heigh- 
tened by the coincidence of several narra- 
C 



tives, ail of them possessing the same claims 
upon our belief. If it be improbable that 
one should be written for the purpose of im- 
posing a falsehood upon the world, it is still 
more improbable that many should be writ- 
ten, all of them conspiring to the same per- 
verse and unnatural object. No one can 
doubt, at least, that of the multitude of writ- 
ten testimonies which have come down to 
us, the true must greatly preponderate over 
the false; and that the deceitful principle, 
though it exists sometimes, could never ope- 
rate to such an extent, as to carry any great 
or general imposition in the face of all the 
documents which are before us. The sup- 
position must be extended much farther than 
we have yet carried it, before we reach the 
degree of evidence and of testimony, of which 
on many points of ancient history, we are at 
this moment in actual possession. Many 
documents have been collect ed, professing to 
be written at different times, and by men of 
different countries. In this way a great body 
of ancient literature has been formed, from 
which we can collect many points of evi- 
dence, too tedious to enumerate. Do we 
find the express concurrence of several au- 
thors to the same piece of history ? Do we 
find, what is still more impressive, events 
formally announced in one narrative, not 
told over again, but implied and proceeded 
upon as true in another ? Do we find the 
succession of history, through a series of 
ages, supported in a way that is natural and 
consistent ? Do we find those compositions 
which profess a higher antiquity, appealed 
to by those which profess a lower 1 These, 
and a number of other points, which meet 
every scholar who betakes himself to the 
actual investigation, give a most warm and 
living character of reality to the history of 
past times. There is a perversity of mind 
which may resist all this. There is no end 
to the fancies of scepticism. W r e may plead 
in vain the number of written testimonies, 
their artless coincidence, and the perfect un- 
designedness of manner by which they often 
supply the circumstances that serve both to 
guide and satisfy the inquirer, and to throw 
light and support upon one another. The 
infidel will still have something behind 
Which he can entrench himself; and his last 
supposition, monstrous and unnatural as it 
is, may be, that the whole of written history 
is a laborious fabrication, sustained for many 
ages, and concurred in by many individuals, 
with no other purpose than to enjoy the 
anticipated blunders of the men of future 
times, Whom they had combined with so 
much dexterity to bewilder and lead astray. 

If it were possible to summon up to the 
presence of the mind the whole mass of 
spoken testimony, it would be found, that 
what was false bore a very small proportion 
to what was true. For many obvious rea- 
sons, the proportion of the false to the true 



18 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



[CHAP. 



must be also small in written testimony. 
Yet instances of falsehood occur in both ; 
and the actual ability to separate the false 
from the true in written history, proves that 
historical evidence has its principles and its 
probabilities to go upon. There may be the 
natural signs of dishonesty. There may be 
the wildness and improbability of the nar- 
rative. There may be a total want of 
agreement on the part of other documents. 
There may be the silence of every author 
for ages after the pretended date of the 
manuscript in question. There may be all 
these, in sufficient abundance, to convict the 
manuscript of forgery and falsehood. This 
has actually been done in several instances. 
The skill and discernment of the human 
mind upon the subject of historical evidence, 
have been improved by the exercise. The 
few cases in which sentence of condemnation 
has been given, are so many testimonies to 
the competency of the tribunal which has sat 
in judgment over them, and give a stability 
to their verdict, when any document is ap- 
proved of. it is a peculiar subject, and the 
men who stand at a distance from it may 
multiply their suspicions and their skepti- 
cism at pleasure ; but no intelligent man ever 
entered into the details, without feeling the 
most familiar and satisfying conviction of 
that credit and confidence which it is in the 
power of historical evidence to bestow. 

Now, to apply this to the object of our 
present division, which is to ascertain the 
age of the document, and the person who is 
the author of it. These are points of infor- 
mation which may be collected from the 
performance itself. They may be found in 
the body of the composition, or they may 
be more formally announced in the title 
page — and every time that the book is re- 
ferred to by its title, or the name of the 
author and age of the publication are an- 
nounced in any other document that has 
come down to us, these points of informa- 
tion receive additional proof from the testi- 
mony of subsequent writers. 

The New Testament is bound up in one 
volume, but we would be underrating its 
evidence if we regarded it only as one testi- 
mony, and that the truth of the facts re- 
corded in it rested upon the testimony of 
one historian. It is not one publication, 
but a collection of several publications, 
which are ascribed to different authors 
and made their first apearance in different 
parts of the world. To fix the date of their 
appearance, it is necessary to institute a 
separate inquiry for each publication ; and 
it is the unexcepted testimony of all subse- 
quent writers, that two of the Gospels and 
several of the Epistles, were written by the 
immediate disciples of our Saviour, and 
published in their lifetime. Celsus, an enemy 
of the Christian faith, refers to the affairs of 
Jesus as written by his disciples. He never 



thinks of disputing the fact; and from the 
extracts which he makes for the purpose of 
criticism, there can be no doubt in the mind 
of the reader that it is one or other of the four 
Gospels to which he refers. The single testi- 
mony of Celsus may be considered as de- 
cisive of the fact, that the story of Jesus and 
of his life was actually written by his disci- 
ples. Celsus writes about a hundred years 
after the alleged time of the publication of 
this story ; but that it was written by the 
companions of this Jesus, is a fact which he 
never thinks of disputing. He takes it upon 
the strength of its general notoriety, and the 
whole history of that period furnishes no- 
thing that can attach any doubt or suspicion 
to this circumstance. Referring to a prin- 
ciple already taken notice of, had it been 
the history of a philosopher instead of a pro- 
phet, its authenticity would have been ad- 
mitted without any formal testimony to that 
effect. It would have been admitted so to 
speak, upon the mere existence of the title- 
page, combined with this circumstance, that 
the whole course of history or tradition does 
not furnish us with a single fact, leading us 
to believe that the correctness of this title- 
page was ever questioned. It would have 
been admitted, not because it was asserted 
by subsequent writers, but because they 
made no assertion upon the subject, because 
they never thought of converting it into a 
matter of discussion, and because their oc- 
casional references to the book in question 
would be looked upon as carrying in them 
a tacit acknowledgement, that it was the 
very same book which it professed to be at 
the present day. The distinct assertion of 
Celsus that the pieces in question were 
written by the companions of Jesus, though 
even at the distance of a hundred years, is 
an argument in favour of their authenticity, 
which cannot be alleged for many of the 
most esteemed compositions of antiquity. 
It is the addition of a formal testimony to 
that kind of general evidence, which is 
founded upon the tacit or implied concur- 
rence of subsequent writers, and which is 
held to be perfectly decisive in similar cases. 

Had the pieces, which make up the New 
Testament, been the only documents of 
past times, the mere existence of a preten- 
sion to such an age, and to such an author, 
resting on their own information, would 
have been sustained as a certain degree of 
evidence, that the real age and the real 
author had been assigned to them. But we 
have the testimony of subsequent authors 
to the same effect ; and it is to be remarked, 
that it is by far the most crowded, and the 
most closely sustained series of testimonies, 
of which we have any example in the whole 
field of ancient history. When we assigned 
the testimony of Celsus, it is not to be sup- 
posed that this is the very first which occurs 
after the days of the apostles. The blank 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



19 



of a hundred years betwixt the publication 
of the original story and the publication of 
Celsus, is filled up by antecedent testimonies, 
which, in all fairness, should be counted 
more decisive of the point in question. They 
are the testimonies of Christian writers, and, 
in as far as a nearer opportunity of obtain- 
ing correct information is concerned, they 
should be held more valuable than the tes- 
timony of Celsus. These references are of 
three kinds : — First, In some cases, their re- 
ference to the books of the New Testament 
is made in the form of an express quotation, 
and the author particularly named. Second- 
ly, In other cases, the quotation is made 
without reference to the particular author, 
and ushered in by the general words, u as 
it is written." And, Thirdly, There are 
innumerable allusions to the different parts 
of the New Testament, scattered over all the 
writings of the earlier fathers. In this last 
case there is no express citation ; but we have 
the sentiment, the turn of expression, the 
very words of the New Testament, repeated 
so often, and by such a number of different 
writers, as to leave no doubt upon the mind 
that they were copied from one common 
original, which was at that period held in 
high reverence and estimation. In pursuing 
the train of references, we do not meet with 
a single chasm from the days of the original 
writers. Not to repeat what we have al- 
ready made some allusion to, the testimo- 
nies of the original writers to one another, 
we proceed to assert, that some of the fathers 
whose writings have come down to us, 
were the companions of the apostles, and 
are even named in the books of the New 
Testament. St. Clement, bishop of Rome, 
is, with the concurrence of all ancient au- 
thors, the same whom Paul mentions in his 
epistle to the Philippians. In his epistle to 
the church of Corinth, which was written in 
the name of the whole church of Rome, he 
refers to the first epistle of Paul to the former 
church. " Take into your hands the epistle 
of the blessed Paul the apostle." He then 
makes a quotation, which is to be found in 
Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians. Could 
Clement have done this to the Corinthians 
themselves, had no such epistle been in 
existence ? And is not this an undoubted 
testimony, not merely from the mouth of 
Clement, but on the part of the churches 
both of Rome and Corinth, to the authenti- 
city of such an epistle ? There are in this 
same epistle of Clement several quotations 
of the second kind, which confirm the exist- 
ence of some other books of the New Tes- 
tament ; and a multitude of allusions or re- 
ferences of the third kind, to the writings of 
the evangelists, the Acts of the Apostles, and 
a great many of those epistles which have 
been admitted into the New Testament. We 
have similar testimonies from some more 
of the fathers, who lived and conversed with 



Jesus Christ. Besides many references of 
the second and third kind, we have also 
other instances of the same kind of testimony 
which Clement gave to St. Paul's first Epis- 
tle to the Corinthians, than which nothing 
can be conceived more indisputable. Igna- 
tius, writing to the church of Ephesus, takes 
notice of St. Paul's epistle to that church ; 
and Polycarp, an immediate disciple of the 
apostles, makes the same express reference 
to St. Paul's epistle to the Philippians in a 
letter addressed to the people. In carrying 
our attention down from the apostolical 
fathers, we follow an uninterrupted series 
of testimonies to the authenticity of the ca- 
nonical scriptures. They get more numer- 
ous and circumstantial as we proceed — a 
thing to be expected from the progress of 
Christianity, and the greater multitude of 
writers, who came forward in its defence 
and illustration. 

In pursuing the series of writers from the 
days of the apostles down to about 150 years 
after the publication of the pieces wiiich 
make up the New Testament, we come to 
Tertullian, of whom Lardner says, " that 
there are perhaps more and longer quota- 
tions of the small volume of the New Tes- 
tament in this one Christian author, than of 
all the works of Cicero, though of so un- 
common excellence for thought and style, 
in the writers of all characters for several 
ages." 

We feel ourselves exposed, in this part of 
our investigation, to the suspicion which ad- 
heres to every Christian testimony. We 
have already made some attempts to ana- 1 
lyse that .suspicion into its ingredients, and 
we conceive, that the circumstance of the 
Christians being an interested party, is only 
one, and not perhaps the principal of these 
ingredients. At all events, this may be the 
proper place for disposing of that one in- 
gredient, and for offering a few general ob- 
servations on the strength of the Christian 
testimony. 

In estimating the value of any testimony/ 
there are two distinct objects of considera- 
tion ; the person who gives the testimony, 
and the people to whom the testimony is 
addressed. It is quite needless to enlarge 
on the resources which, in the present in- 
stance, we derive from both these consider- 
ations, and how much each of them contri- 
butes to the triumph and solidity of the 
Christian argument. In as far as the peo- 
ple who give the testimony are concerned, 
how could they be mistaken in their account 
of the New Testament, when some of them 
lived in the same age with the original wri- 
ters, and were their intimate acquaintances, 
and when all of them had the benefit of an 
uncontrolled series of evidence, reaching 
down from the date of the earliest publica- 
tions to their own times 1 Or, how can we 
suspect that they falsified, when there runs 



20 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



[CHAP. 



through their writings the same tone of 
plainness and sincerity, which is allowed to 
stamp the character of authenticity on other 
productions ; and, above all, when, upon the 
strength even of heathen testimony, we con- 
clude that many of them, by their sufferings 
and death, gave the highest evidence that 
man can give, of his speaking under the in- 
fluence of a real and honest conviction? In 
as far as the people who received the testi- 
mony are concerned, to what other circum- 
stances can we ascribe their concurrence, 
than to the truth of that testimony? In 
what way was it possible to deceive them 
upon a point of general notoriety? The 
books of the New Testament are refer- 
red to b}^ the ancient fathers, as writings 
generally known and respected by the 
Christians of that period. If they were ob- 
scure writings, or had no existence at the 
time, how can we account for the credit and 
authority of those fathers who appealed to 
them, and had the effrontery to insult their 
fellow Christians by a falsehood so palpable, 
and so easily detected ? Allow them to 
be capable of this treachery, we have still 
to explain, how the people came to be the 
dupes of so glaring an imposition ; how 
they could be persuaded to give up every 
thing for a religion, whose teachers were so 
unprincipled as to deceive them, and so un- 
wise as to commit themselves upon ground 
where it was impossible to elude discovery. 
Could Clement have dared to refer the peo- 
of Corinth to an Epistle said to be received 
by themselves, and which had no existence ? 
or could he have referred the Christians at 
large to writings which they never heard 
of. And it was not enough to maintain the 
semblance of truth with the people of their 
own party. 

Where were the Jews all the time ? and 
how was it possible to escape the correction 
of these keen and vigilant observers ? We 
mistake the matter much, if we think that 
Christianity at that time was making its 
insidious way in silence and in secrecy, 
through a listless and unconcerned public. 
All history gives an opposite representation. 
The passions and curiosity of men were 
quite upon the alert. The popular enthu- 
siasm had been excited on both sides of the 
question. It had drawn the attention of es- 
tablished authorities in different provinces 
of the empire, and the merits of the Chris- 
tian cause had become a matter of frequent 
and formal discussion in courts of judicature. 
If, in these circumstances, the Christian 
writers had the hardihood to venture upon 
a falsehood, it would have been upon safer 
ground than what they actually adopted. 
They would never have hazarded to assert 
what was so open to contradiction, as the 
existence of books held in reverence among 
all the churches, and which nobody either 
in or out of these churches ever heard of. 



They would never have been so unwise as 
to commit in this way a cause, which had 
not a single circumstance to recommend it 
but its truth and its evidences. 

The falsehood of the Christian testimony 
on this point, would carry along with it a 
concurrence of circumstances, each of which 
is the strangest and most unprecedented that 
ever was heard of. First, That men, who 
sustained in their writings all the characters 
of sincerity, and many of whom submitted 
to martyrdom, as the highest pledge of 
sincerity which can possibly be given, should 
have been capable of falsehood at all. 
Second, That this tendency to falsehood 
should have been exercised so unwisely as to 
appear in an assertion perfectly open to de- 
tection, and which could be so readily con- 
verted to the discredit of that religion, which 
it was the favourite ambition of their lives 
to promote and establish in the world 
Third, that this testimony could have gain- 
ed the concurrence of the people to whom 
it was addressed, and that, with their eyes 
perfectly open to its falsehood, they should 
be ready to make the sacrifice of life, and 
of fortune in supporting it. Fourth, That 
this testimony should never have been contra- 
dicted by the Jews, and that they should have 
neglected so effectual an opportunity of dis- 
gracing a religion, the progress of which 
they contemplated with so much jealousy 
and alarm. Add to this, that it is not the 
testimony of one writer which we are ma- 
king to pass through the ordeal of so many 
difficulties. It is the testimony of many 
writers, who lived at different times and 
in different countries, and who add the very 
singular circumstance of their entire agree* 
ment with one another, to the other circum- 
stances equally unaccountable, which we 
have just now enumerated. The falsehood of 
their united testimony is not to be conceived. 
It is a supposition which we are warranted 
to condemn, upon the strength of any one 
of the above improbabilities taken separate- 
ly. But the fair way of estimating their 
effect upon the argument, is to take them 
jointly, and in the language of the doctrine 
of chances, to take the product of all the 
improbabilities into one another. The ar- 
gument which this product furnishes for 
the truth of the Christian testimony, has, in 
strength and conclusiveness, no parallel in 
the whole compass of ancient literature. 

The testimony of Celsus is looked upon 
as peculiarly valuable, because it is disinter- 
ested. But if this consideration gives so 
much weight to the testimony of Celsus, 
why should so much doubt and suspicion 
annex to the testimony of Christian writers, 
several of whom, before his time, have 
given a fuller and more express testimony 
to the authenticity of the Gospels ? In the 
persecutions they sustained ; in the obvious 
tone of sincerity and honesty which runs 



INTERNAL MARKS OF TRUTH. 21 



through their writings; in their general 
agreement upon this subject ; in the multi- 
tude of their followers, who never could 
have confided in men that ventured to com- 
mit themselves, by the assertion of what 
was obviously and notoriously false; in the 



check which the vigilance, both of Jews 
and Heathens, exercised over every Chris- 
tian writer of that period, — in all these 
circumstances, they give every evidence of 
having delivered a fair and unpolluted testi- 
mony. 



CHAPTER III. 

On the internal Marks of Truth and Honesty to be found in the New Testament. 



IL We shall now look into the New Tes- 
tament itself, and endeavour to lay before 
the reader the internal marks of truth and 
honesty, which are to be found in it. 

Under this head, it may be right to in- 
sist upon the minute accuracy, which runs 
through all its allusions to the existing 
manners and circumstances of the times. 
To appreciate the force of this argument, it 
would be right to attend to the peculiar sit- 
uation of Judea, at the time of our Saviour. 
It was then under the dominion of the Ro- 
man emperors, and comes frequently under 
the notice of the profane historians of that 
period. From this source we derive a great 
variety of information, as to the manner in 
which the emperors conducted the govern- 
ment of their different provinces ; what 
degree of indulgence was allowed to the 
religious opinions of the people whom they 
held in subjection ; in how far they were 
suffered to live under the administration of 
their own laws ; the power which was vest- 
ed in the presidents of provinces ; and a 
number of other circumstances relative to 
the criminal and civil jurisprudence of that 
period. In this way, there is a great num- 
ber of different points in which the histori- 
ans of the New Testament can be brought 
into comparison with the secular historians 
of the age. The history of Christ and his 
apostles contains innumerable references to 
the state of public affairs. It is not the his- 
tory of obscure and unnoticed individuals. 
They had attracted much of the public at- 
tention. They had been before the govern- 
ors of the country. They had passed through 
the established forms of justice ; and some 
of them underwent the trial and punishment 
of the times. It is easy to perceive, then, 
that the New Testament writers were led to 
allude to a number of these circumstances 
in the political history and constitution of 
the times, which came under the cognizance 
of ordinary historians. This was delicate 
ground for an inventor to tread upon ; and 
particularly, if he lived at an age subsequent 
to the time of his history. He might in this 
case have fabricated a tale, by confining 
himself to the obscure and familiar incidents 
of private history; but it is only for a true 



and a contemporary historian to sustain a 
continued accuracy, through his minute 
and numerous allusions to the public policy 
and government of the times. 

Within the period of the Gospel history, 
Judea experienced a good many vicissitudes 
in the state of its government. At one time 
it formed part of a kingdom under Herod 
the Great. At another, it formed part of 
a smaller government under Archelaus. 
It after this came under the direct ad- 
ministration of a Roman governor ; which 
form was again interrupted for several 
years, by the elevation of Herod Agrippa to 
the sovereign power, as exercised by his 
grandfather; and it is at last left in the form 
of a province at the conclusion of the evan- 
gelical history. There were also frequent 
changes in the political state of the coun- 
tries adjacent to Judea, and which are often 
alluded to in the New Testament. A ca- 
price of the reigning emperor often gave 
rise to a new form of government, and a 
new distribution of territory. It will be 
readily conceived, how much these perpet- 
ual fluctuations in the state of public affairs, 
both in Judea and its neighbourhood, must 
add to the power and difficulty of that or- 
deal to which the Gospel history has been 
subjected. 

On this part of the subject, there is no want 
of witnesses with whom to confront the wri- 
ters of the New Testament. In addition to the 
Roman writers who have touched upon the 
affairs of Judea, we have the benefit of a Jew- 
ish historian, who has given us a professed 
history of his own country. From him, as was 
to be expected, we have a far greater quan- 
tity of copious and detailed narrative, rela- 
tive to the internal affairs of Judea, to the 
manners of the people, and those particu- 
lars which are connected with their religious 
belief, and ecclesiastical constitution. With 
many, it will be supposed to add to the 
value of his testimony, that he was not a 
Christian ; but that, on the other hand, we 
have every reason to believe him to have 
been a most zealous and determined enemy 
to the cause. It is really a most useful ex- 
ercise, to pursue the harmony which sub- 
sists between the writers of the New Testa- 



22 



INTERNAL MARKS OF TRUTH. 



[chap. 



ment, and those Jewish and profane authors, [ 
with whom we bring them into comparison. I 
Throughout the whole examination, our at- 
tention is confined to forms of justice ; suc- 
cessions of governors in different provinces ; 
manners, and political institutions. We are 
therefore apt to forget the sacredness of the 
subj ect ; and we appeal to all, who have 
prosecuted this inquiry, if this circumstance 
is not favourable to their having a closer 
and more decided impression of the truth 
of the Gospel history. By instituting a 
comparison between the evangelists and con- 
temporary authors, and restricting our at- 
tention to those points which come under 
the cognizance of ordinary history, we put 
the apostles and evangelists on the footing 
of ordinary historians ; and it is for those, 
who have actually undergone the labour of 
this examination, to tell how much this cir- 
cumstance adds to the impression of their 
authenticity. The mind gets emancipated 
from the peculiar delusion which attaches 
to the sacredness of the subject, and which 
has the undoubted effect of restraining the 
confidence of its inquiries. The argument 
assumes a secular complexion, and the 
writers of the New Testament are restored to 
that credit, with which the reader delivers 
himself up to any other historian, who has 
a much less weight and quantity of histori- 
cal evidence in his favour. 

We refer those readers who wish to pro- 
secute this inquiry, to the first volume of 
Lardner's Credibility of the Gospels. We 
shall restrict ourselves to a few general ob- 
servations on the nature and precise effect 
of the argument. 

In the first place, the accuracy of the nu- 
merous allusions to the circumstances of 
that period, which ihe Gospel history em- 
braces, forms a strong corroboration of that 
antiquity, which we have already assigned 
to its writers from external testimony. It 
amounts to a proof, that it is the production 
of authors who lived antecedent to the de- 
struction of Jerusalem, and consequently 
about the time that is ascribed to them by 
all the external testimony which has already 
been insisted upon. It is that accuracy, 
which could only be maintained by a con- 
temporary historian. It would be difficult, 
even for the author of some general specu- 
lation, not to betray his time by some occa- 
sional allusion to the ephemeral customs 
and institutions of the period in which he 
wrote. But the authors of the New Testa- 
ment run a much greater risk. There are 
five different pieces of that collection which 
are purely historical, and where there is a 
continued reference to the characters, and 
politics, and passing events of the day. The 
destruction of Jerusalem swept away the 
whole fabric of Jewish polity ; and it is not 
to be conceived, that the memory of a fu- 
ture generation could have retained that 



minute, that varied, that intimate acquaint- i 
ance with the statistics of a nation no longer i 
in existence, which is evinced in every page !; 
of the evangelical writers. We find, in point 
of fact, that both the Heathen and Christian i 
writers of subsequent ages do often betray ji 
their ignorance of the particular customs 
which obtained in Judea during the time of 
our Saviour. And it must be esteemed a 
strong circumstance in favour of the anti- 
quity of the New Testament, that on a sub- 
ject, in which the chances of detection are 
so numerous, and where we can scarcely 1 
advance a single step in the narrative, with- 
out the possibility of betraying our time by 
some mistaken allusion, it stands distin- 
guished from every later composition, in 
being able to bear the most minute and in- 
timate comparison with the contemporary 
historians of that period. 

The argument derives great additional 
strength, from viewing the New Testament, 
not as one single performance, but as a col- 
lection of several performances. It is the 
work of no less than eight different authors, 
who wrote without any appearance of con- 
cert, who published in different parts of the 
world, and whose writings possess every 
evidence, both internal and external, of be- 
ing independent productions. Had only 
one author exhibited the same minute ac- 
curacy of allusion, it would have been es- 
teemed a very strong evidence of his anti- 
quity. But when we see so many authors 
exhibiting such a well-sustained and almost 
unexpected accuracy through the whole 
of their varied and distinct narratives, it 
seems difficult to avoid the conclusion, that 
they were either the eye-witnesses of their 
own history, or lived about the period of 
its accomplishment. 

When different historians undertake the 
affairs of the same period, they either de- 
rive their information from one another, or 
proceed upon' distinct and independent in- 
formation of their own. Now, it is not dif- 
ficult to distinguish the copyist from the 
original historian. There is something in 
the very style and manner of an original 
narrative, which announces its pretensions. 
It is not possible that any one event, or any 
series of events, should make such a similar 
impression upon two witnesses, as to dis- 
pose them to relate it in the same language, 
to describe it in the same order, to form the 
same estimate as to the circumstances which 
should be noticed as important, and those 
other circumstances which should be sup- 
pressed as immaterial. Each witness tells 
the thing in his own way, makes use of his 
own language, and brings forward circum- 
stances which the other might omit alto- 
gether, as not essential to the purpose of 
his narrative. It is this agreement in the 
facts, with this variety in the manner of 
describing them, that never fails to impress 



III.] 



INTERNAL MARKS OF TRUTH. 



23 



upon the inquirer that additional conviction 
which arises from the concurrence of sepa- 
rate and independent testimonies. Now, 
this is precisely that kind of coincidence 
which subsists between the New Testament 
writers and Josephus, in their allusions to 
the peculiar customs and institutions of that 
age. Each party maintains the style of 
original and independent historians. The 
one often omits altogether, or makes only a 
slight and distant allusion to what occupies 
a prominent part in the composition of the 
other. There is not the slightest vestige of 
any thing like a studied coincidence between 
them. There is variety, but no opposition ; 
and it says much for the authenticity of 
both histories, that the most scrupulous and 
attentive criticism can scarcely detect a sin- 
gle example of an apparent contradiction in 
the testimony of these different authors, 
which does not admit of a likely, or at least 
a plausible reconciliation. 

When the difference between two his- 
torians is carried to the length of a contra- 
diction, it enfeebles the credit of both their 
testimonies. When the agreement is car- 
ried to the length of a close and scrupulous 
resemblance in every particular, it destroys 
the credit of one of the parties as an inde- 
pendent historian. In the case before us, 
we neither perceive this difference, nor this 
agreement. Such are the variations, that, at 
first sight, the reader is alarmed with the 
appearance of very serious and embarrassing 
difficulties. And such is the actual coinci- 
dence, that the difficulties vanish when we 
apply to them the labours of a profound and 
intelligent criticism. Had it been the object 
of the Gospel writers to trick out a plausi- 
ble imposition on the credulity of the world, 
they would have studied a closer resem- 
blance to the existing authorities of that pe- 
riod ; nor would they have laid themselves 
open to the superficial brilliancy of Vol- 
taire, which dazzles every imagination, and 
reposed their vindication with the Lelands 
and Lardners of a distant posterity, whose 
sober erudition is so little attended to, and 
which so few know how to appreciate. 

In the Gospels, we are told that Herod 
the Tetrarch of Galilee, married his brother 
Philip's wife. In Josephus we have the 
same story ; only he gives a different name 
to Philip, and calls him Herod ; and what 
adds to the difficulty, there was a Philip of 
that family, whom we know not to have 
been the first husband of Herodias. This is 
at first sight a little alarming. But, in the 
progress of our inquiries, we are given to 
understand from this same Josephus, that 
there were three Herods of the same family, 
and therefore no improbability in there be- 
ing two Philips. We also know, from the 
histories of that period, that it was quite 
common for the same individual to have 
two names ; and this is never more necessa- 



ry, than when employed to distinguish bro- 
thers who have one name the same. The 
Herod who is called Philip, is just as likely 
a distinction, as Simon who is called Peter, 
or Saul who is called Paul. The name of 
the high priest, at the time of our Saviour's 
crucifixion, was Caiaphas, according to the 
evangelists. According to Josephus, the 
name of the high priest at that period was 
Joseph. This would have been precisely a 
difficulty of the same kind, had not Jose- 
phus happened to mention, that this Joseph 
was also called Caiaphas. Would it have 
been dealing fairly with the evangelists, we 
ask, to have made their credibility depend 
upon the accidental omission of another 
historian ? Is it consistent with any ac- 
knowledged principle of sound criticism, to 
bring four writers so entirely under the tri- 
bunal of Josephus, each of whom stands as 
firmly supported by all the evidences which 
can give authority to a historian ; and who 
have greatly the advantage of him in this, 
that they can add the argument of their 
concurrence to the argument of each sep- 
arate and independent testimony? It so 
happens, however, in the present instance, 
that even Jewish writers, in their narrative 
of the same circumstance, give the name 
of Philip to the first husband of Herodias. 
We by no means conceive, that any foreign 
testimony was necessary for the vindication 
of the evangelists. Still, however, it must 
go far to dissipate every suspicion of artifice 
in the construction of their histories. It 
proves, that in the confidence with which 
they delivered themselves up to their own 
information, they neglected appearance, and 
felt themselves independent of it. This ap- 
parent difficulty, like many others of the 
same kind, lands us in a stronger confirma- 
tion of the honesty of the evangelists ; and 
it is delightful to perceive, how truth re- 
ceives a fuller accession to its splendour, 
from the attempts which are made to dis- 
grace and to darken it. 

On this branch of the argument, the im- 
partial inquirer must be struck with the lit- 
tle indulgence which infidels, and even 
Christians, have given to the evangelical 
writers. In other cases, when we compare 
the narratives of contemporary historians, 
it is not expected, that all the circumstances 
alluded to by one will be taken notice of by 
the rest ; and it often happens, that an event 
or a custom is admitted upon the faith of a 
single historian ; and the silence of all other 
writers is not suffered to attach suspicion 
or discredit his testimony. It is an allowed 
principle, that a scrupulous resemblance be- 
tween two histories is very far from neces- 
sary to their being held consistent with one 
another. And, what is more, it sometimes 
happens, that with contemporary historians 
there may be an apparent contradiction, 
and the credit of both parties remain as 



24 



INTERNAL MARKS OF TRUTH. 



[chap. 



entire and unsuspicious as before. Posterity- 
is in these cases disposed to make the most 
liberal allowances. Instead of calling it a 
contradiction, they often call it a difficulty. 
They are sensible, that in many instances, 
a seeming variety of statement has, upon a 
more extensive knowledge of ancient his- 
tory, admitted of a perfect reconciliation. 
Instead, then, of referring the difficulty in 
question to the inaccuracy or bad faith of any 
of the parties, they with more justness and 
more modesty, refer it to their own igno- 
rance, and to that obscurity which necessa- 
rily hangs over the history of every remote 
age. These principles are suffered to have 
great influence in every secular investiga- 
tion ; but so soon as, instead of a secular, it 
becomes a sacred investigation, every ordi- 
nary principle is abandoned, and the sus- 
picion annexed to the teachers of religion is 
carried to the dereliction of all that can- 
dour and liberality, with which every other 
document of antiquity is judged of and ap- 
preciated. How does it happen, that the 
authority of Josephus should be acquiesced 
in as a first principle, while every step in 
the narrative of the evangelists must have 
foreign testimony to confirm and support 
it ? How comes it that the silence of Jose- 
phus should be construed into an impeach- 
ment of the testimony of the evangelists, 
while it is never admitted for a single mo- 
ment, that the silence of the evangelists can 
impart the slightest blemish to the testimony 
of Josephus ? How comes it that the sup- 
position of two Philips in one family should 
throw a damp of scepticism over the Gos- 
pel narrative, while the only circumstance 
which renders that supposition necessary is 
the single testimony of Josephus ; in which 
very testimony, it is necessarily implied, 
that there are two Herods in the same fam- 
ily? How comes it, that the evangelists, 
with as much internal, and a vast deal 
more of external evidence in their favour, 
should be made to stand before Josephus, 
like so many prisoners at the bar of justice? 
In any other case, we are convinced that 
this would be looked upon as rough hand- 
ling. But we are not sorry for it. It has 
given more triumph and confidence to the 
argument. And it is no small addition to 
our faith, that its first teachers have sur- 
vived an examination, which, in point of 
rigour and severity, we believe to be quite 
unexampled in the annals of criticism. 

It is always looked upon as a favourable 
presumption, when a story is told circum- 
stantially. The art and the safety of an 
impostor, is to confine his narrative to gen- 
erals, and not to commit himself by too 
minute a specification of time and place, 
and allusion to the manners or occurrences 
of the day. The more of circumstance that 
we introduce into a story, we multiply the 
chances of detection, if false ; and therefore, 



where a great deal of circumstance is intro- 
duced, it proves, that the narrator feels the 
confidence of truth, and labours under 
apprehension for the fate of his narrative 
Even though we have it not in our powei 
to verify the truth of a single circumstance, 
yet the mereproperty of a story being circum- 
stantial is always felt to carry an evidence 
in its favour. It imparts a more familiar 
air of life and reality to the narrative. It is 
easy to believe, that the groundwork of a 
story may be a fabrication ; but it requires 
a more refined species of imposture than 
we can well conceive, to construct a harmo- 
nious and well-sustained narrative, abound- 
ing in minute and circumstantial details 
which support one another, and where, 
with all our experience of real life, we can 
detect nothing misplaced, or inconsistent, 
or improbable. 

To prosecute this argument in all its ex- 
tent, it would be necessary to present the 
reader with a complete analysis or examina- 
tion of the Gospel history. But the most 
superficial observer cannot fail to perceive, 
that it maintains, in a very high degree, the 
character of being a circumstantial narra- 
tive. When a miracle is recorded, we have 
generally the name of the town or neigh- 
bourhood where it happened ; the names of 
the people concerned ; the effect upon the 
hearts and convictions of the by-standers ; 
the arguments and examinations it gave 
birth to ; and all that minuteness of refer- 
ence and description which impresses a 
strong character of reality upon the whole 
history. If we take along with us the time 
at which this history made its appearance, 
the argument becomes much stronger. — 
It does not merely carry a presumption 
in its favour, from being a circumstantial 
history : — it carries a proof in its favour, be- 
cause these circumstances were completely 
within the reach and examination of those 
to whom it was addressed. Had the evan- 
gelists been false historians, they would not 
have committed themselves upon so many 
particulars. They would not have furnished , 
the vigilant inquiries of that period with 
such an effectual instrument for bringing 
them into discredit with the people; nor 
foolishly supplied, in every page of their 
narrative, so many materials for a cross- 
examination, which would infallibly have 
disgraced them. 

Now, we of this age can institute the 
same cross-examination. We can compare 
the evangelical writers with contemporary > 
authors, and verify a number of circum- 
stances in the history, and government, and 
peculiar economy of the Jewish people i 
We therefore have it in our power to insti- \ 
tute a cross-examination upon the writers of 
the New Testament ; and the freedom and 
frequency of their allusions to these cir- 
cumstances supply us with ample materials 



III. J 



INTERNAL MARKS OF TRUTH. 



25 



for it. The fact, that they are borne out in 
their minute and incidental allusions by the 
testimony of other historians, gives a strong 
weight of what has been called circum- 
stantial evidence in their favour. As a 
specimen of the argument, let us confine 
our observations to the history of our Sa- 
viour's trial, and execution, and burial. 
They brought him to Pontius Pilate. We 
know both from Tacitus and Josephus, that 
he was at that time governor of Judea. A 
sentence from him was necessary before 
they could proceed to the execution of Je- 
sus ; and we know that the power of life 
and death was usually vested in the Roman 
governor. Our Saviour was treated with 
derision ; and this we know to have been a 
customary practice at that time, previous to 
the execution of criminals, and during the 
time of it. Pilate scourged Jesus before he 
gave him up to be crucified. We know from 
ancient authors, that this was a very usual 
practice among the Romans. The account 
of an excution generally run in this form : — 
he was stripped, whipped, and beheaded or 
executed. According to the evangelists, his 
accusation was written on the top of the 
cross; and we learn from Suetonius and 
others, that the crime of a person to be ex- 
ecuted was affixed to the instrument of his 
punishment. According to the evangelist, 
this accusation was written in three differ- 
ent languages ; and we know from Jose- 
phus, that it was quite common in Jerusalem 
to have all public advertisements written in 
this manner. According to the evangelists, 
Jesus had to bear his cross ; and we know 
from other resources of information, that 
this was the constant practice of these 
times. According to the evangelists, the 
body of Jesus was given up to be buried at 
the request of friends. We know that, un- 
less the criminal was infamous, this was 
the law, or the custom with all Roman 
governors. 

These, and a few more particulars of the 
same kind, occur within the compass of a 
single page of the evangelical history. The 
circumstantial manner of the history affords 
a presumption in its favour, antecedent to 
all examination into the truth of the circum- 
stances themselves. But it makes a strong 
addition to the evidence, when we find, that 
in all the subordinate parts of the main 
story, the evangelists maintain so great a 
consistency with the testimony of other au- 
thors, and with all we can collect from other 
sources of information, as to the manners 
and institutions of that period. It is diffi- 
cult to conceive, in the first instance, how 
the inventor of a fabricated story would 
hazard such a number of circumstances, 
each of them supplying a point of compari- 
son with other authors, and giving to the 
inquirer an additional chance of detecting 
the imposition. And it is still more difficult 
D 



to believe, that truth should have been so 
artfully blended with falsehood in the com- 
position of this narrative, particularly as we 
perceive nothing like a forced introduction 
of any one circumstance. There appears 
to be nothing out of place, nothing thrust in 
with the view of imparting an air of proba- 
bility to the history. The circumstance 
upon which we bring the evangelists into 
comparison with profane authors, is often 
not intimated in a direct form, but in the 
form of a slight or distant allusion. There 
is not the most remote appearance of its be- 
ing fetched or sought for. It is brought in 
accidentally, and flows in the most natural 
and undesigned manner out of the progress 
of the narrative. 

The circumstance, that none of the Gos- 
pel writers are inconsistent with one an- 
other, falls better under a different branch of 
the argument. It is enough for our present 
purpose, that there is no single writer in- 
consistent with himself. It often happens, 
that falsehood carries its own refutation 
along with it ; and that, through the artful 
disguises which are employed in the con- 
struction of a fabricated story, we can often 
detect a flaw or a contradiction, which con- 
demns the authority of the whole narrative. 
Now, every single piece of the New Testa- 
ment wants this mark or character of false- 
hood. The different parts are found to sus- 
tain, and harmonize, and flow out of each 
other. Each has at least the merit of being 
a consistent narrative. For any thing we 
see upon the face of it, it may be true, 
and a further hearing must be given before 
we can be justified in rejecting it as the 
tale of an impostor. 

There is another mark of falsehood which 
each of the Gospel narratives appear to be 
exempted from. There is little or no pa- 
rading about their own integrity. We can 
collect their pretensions to credit from the 
history itself, but we see no anxious display 
of these pretensions. We cannot fail to per- 
ceive the force of that argument which is de- 
rived from the publicity of the Christian mi- 
racles, and the very minute and scrupulous 
examination which they had to sustain from 
the rulers and official men of Judea. But this 
publicity, and these examinations, are sim- 
ply recorded by the evangelists. There is 
no boastful reference to these circumstances, 
and no ostentatious display of the advantage 
which they give to the Christian argument. 
They bring their story forward in the shape 
of a direct and unencumbered narrative, and 
deliver themselves with that simplicity and 
unembarrassed confidence, which nothing 
but their consciousness of truth, and the 
perfect feeling of their own strength and 
consistency, can account for. They do not 
write, as if their object was to carry a point 
that was at all doubtful or suspicious. It is 
simply to transmit to the men of other times, 



26 



INTERNAL MARKS OF TRUTH. 



[CHAF. 



and of other countries, a memorial of the 
events which led to the establishment of the 
Christian religion in the world. In the 
prosecution of their narrative, we challenge 
the most refined judge of the human cha- 
racter to point out a single symptom of diffi- 
dence in the truth of their own story, or of 
art to cloak this diffidence from the notice 
of the most severe and vigilant observers. 
The manner of the New Testament writers 
does not carry in it the slightest idea of its 
being an assumed manner. It is quite 
natural, quite unguarded, and free of all 
apprehension that their story is to meet 
with any discredit or contradiction from 
any of those numerous readers who had it 
fully in their power to verify or to expose 
it. We see no expedient made use of to ob- 
tain or to conciliate the acquiescence of 
their readers. They appear to feel as if 
they did not need it. They deliver what 
they have to say, in a round and unvarnish- 
ed manner ; nor is it in general accompa- 
nied with any of those strong assevera- 
tions by which an impostor so often at- 
tempts to practice upon the credulity of his 
victims. 

In the simple narrative of the evangelists, 
they betray no feeling of wonder at the ex- 
traordinary nature of the events which they 
record, and no consciousness that what they 
are announcing is to excite any wonder 
among their readers. This appears to us to 
be a very strong circumstance. Had it been 
the newly broached tale of an impostor, he 
would, in all likelihood, have feigned aston- 
ishment himself, or at least have laid his 
account with the doubt and astonishment 
of those to whom it was addressed. When 
a person tells a wonderful story to a com- 
pany who are totally unacquainted with it, 
he must be sensible, not merely of the sur- 
prise which is excited in the minds of the 
hearers, but of a corresponding sympathy 
in his own mind with the feelings of those 
who listen to him. He lays his account 
with the wonder, if not the incredulity, of 
his hearers ; and this distinctly appears in 
the terms with which he delivers his story, 
and the manner in which he introduces it. 
It makes a wide difference, if, on the other 
hand, he tells the same story to a company, 
who have long been apprised of the chief 
circumstances, but who listen to him for the 
mere purpose of obtaining a more distinct 
and particular narrative. Now, in as far as 
we can collect from the manner of the 
evangelists, they stand in this last predica- 
ment. They do not write as if they were 
i mposing a novelty upon their readers. In 
the language of Luke, they write for the 
sake of giving more distinct information; and 
that the readers might know the certainty 
of those things, wherein they had been in- 
structed. In the prosecution of this task, 



they deliver themselves with the most fa 
miliar and unembarrassed simplicity. They 
do not appear to anticipate the surprise of 
their readers, or to be at all aware, that the 
marvellous nature of their story is to be any 
obstacle to its credit or reception in the neigh- 
bourhood. At the first performance of our 
Saviour's miracles, there was a strong and 
a widely spread sensation over the whole 
country. His fame went abroad, and all 
people were amazed. This is quite natu- 
ral; and the circumstance of no surprise 
being either felt or anticipated by the evan- 
gelists, in the writing of their history, can 
best be accounted for by the truth of the 
history itself, that the experience of years 
had blunted the edge of novelty, and ren- 
dered miracles familiar, not only to them, 
but to all the people to whom they address- 
ed themselves. 

What appears to us a most striking in- 
ternal evidence for the truth of the Gospel, 
is that perfect unity of mind and of purpose 
which is ascribed to our Saviour. Had he 
been an impostor, he could not have fore- 
seen all the fluctuations of his history, and 
yet no expression of surprise is recorded to 
have escaped from him. No event appears 
to have caught him unprepared. We see 
no shifting of doctrine or sentiment, with a 
view to accommodate to new or unexpected 
circumstances. His parables and warnings 
to his disciples give sufficient intimation, 
that he laid his account with all those 
events which appeared to his unenlightened 
friends to be so untoward and so unpromis- 
ing. In every explanation of his objects, 
we see the perfect consistency of a mind 
before whose prophetic eye all futurity lay 
open ; and when the events of this futurity 
came round, he met them, not as chances 
that were unforeseen, but as certainties which 
he had provided for. This consistency of 
his views is supported through all the vari- 
ations of his history, and it stands finally 
contrasted in the record of the evangelists, 
with the misconceptions, the surprises, the 
disappointments of his followers. The grad- 
ual progress of their minds from the splen- 
did anticipations of earthly grandeur, to a 
full acquiescence in the doctrine of a cruci- 
fied Saviour, throws a stronger light on the 
perfect unity of purpose and of conception 
which animated his, and which can only 
be accounted for by the inspiration that 
filled and enlightened it. It may have been 
possible enough to describe a well-sustained 
example of this contrast from an actual his- 
tory before us. It is difficult, however, to 
conceive, how it could be sustained so well, 
and in a manner so apparently artless, by 
means of invention, and particularly when 
the inventors made their own errors and 
their own ignorance form part of the fabri- 
cation. 



fT.j 



TESTIMONY OF THE ORIGINAL WITNESSES. 



87 



CHAPTER IV. 

On the Testimony of the Original Witnesses to the Truth of the Gospel Narrative 



III. There was nothing in the situation 
of the New Testament writers, which leads 
us to perceive that they had any possible in- 
ducement for publishing a falsehood. 

We have not to allege the mere testimo- 
ny of the Christian writers, for the danger 
to which the profession of Christianity ex- 
posed all its adherents at that period. We 
have the testimony of Tacitus to this effect. 
We have innumerable allusions, or express 
intimations, of the same circumstance in the 
Roman historians. The treatment and per- 
secution of the Christians make a principle 
figure in the affairs of the empire ; and there 
is no point better established in ancient his- 
tory, than that the bare circumstance of 
being a Christian, brought many to the 
punishment of death, and exposed all to 
the danger of a suffering the most appalling 
and repulsive to the feelings of our nature. 

It is not difficult to perceive, Why the 
Roman government, in its treatment of 
Christians, departed from its usual princi- 
ples of toleration. We know it to have 
been their uniform practice, to allow every 
indulgence to the religious belief of those 
different countries in which they estab- 
lished themselves. 'Hie truth is, that such 
an indulgence demaroed of them no ex- 
ertion of moderation or principle. It was 
quite consonant with the Spirit of Pagan- 
ism. A different country worshipped differ- 
ent gods, but it was a general principle of 
Paganism, that each country had its gods, 
to which the inhabitants of that country 
owed their peculiar homage and veneration. 
In this way there was no interference be- 
tween the different religions which prevail- 
ed in the world. It fell in with the policy 
of the Roman government to allow the full- 
est toleration to other religions, and it de- 
manded no sacrifice of principle. It was 
even a dictate of principle with them to 
respect the gods of other countries; and the 
violation of a religion different from their 
own, seems to have been felt, not merely 
as a departure from policy or justice, but to 
be viewed with the same sentiment of hor- 
ror which is annexed to blasphemy or sacri- 
lege. So long as we were under Paganism, 
the truth of one religion did not involve in 
it the falsehood or rejection of another. In 
respecting the religion of another country, 
we did not abandon our own ; nor did it 
follow, that the inhabitants of that other 
country annexed any contempt or discredit 
to the religion in which we had been edu- 
cated. In this mutual reverence for the 
religion of each other, no principle was de- 



parted from, and no object of veneration 
abandoned. It did not involve in it the de- 
nial or relinquishment of our own gods, but 
only the addition of so many more gods to 
our catalogue. 

In this respect, however, the Jews stood 
distinguished from every other people with- 
in the limits of the Roman empire. Their 
religious belief carried in it something more 
than attachment to their own system. It 
carried in it the contempt and detestation 
of every other. Yet, in spite of this circum- 
stance, their religion was protected by the 
mild and equitable toleration of the Roman 
government. The truth is, that there was 
nothing in the habits or character of the 
Jews, which was calculated to give much 
disturbance to the establishments of other 
countries. Though they admitted converts 
from other nations, yet their spirit of prose- 
lytism was far from being of that active 
or adventurous kind, which could alarm the 
Roman government for the safety of any 
existing institutions. Their high and ex- 
clusive veneration for their own system 
gave an unsocial disdain to the Jewish 
character, which was not at all inviting to 
foreigners; but still, as it led to nothing 
mischievous in point of effect, it seems to 
have been overlooked by the Roman govern- 
ment as a piece of impotent vanity. 

But the case was widely different with 
the Christian system. It did not confine 
itself to the denial or rejection of every 
other system. It was for imposing its own 
exclusive authority over the consciences 
of all, and for detaching as many as it 
could from their allegiance to the religion 
of their own country. It carried on its 
forehead all the offensive characters of a 
monopoly, and not merely excited resent- 
ment by the supposed arrogance of its pre- 
tensions, but from the rapidity and extent 
of its innovations, spread an alarm over the 
whole Roman empire for the security of al 
its establishments. Accordingly, at the com 
mencement of its progress, so long as it was 
confined to Judea and the immediate neigh- 
bourhood, it seems to have been in perfect 
safety from the persecution of the Roman 
government. It was at first looked upon as a 
mere modification of Judaism, and that the 
first Christians differed from the rest of their 
countrymen only in certain questions of 
their own superstition. For a few years after 
the crucifixion of our Saviour, it seems to 
have excited no alarm on the part of the Ro- 
man emperors, who did not depart from 
their usual maxims of toleration, till they 



28 



TESTIMONY OF THE ORIGINAL WITNESSES. 



[CPIAP. 



began to understand the magnitude of its 
pretensions, and the unlooked for success 
which attended them. 

In the course of a very few years after its 
first promulgation, it drew upon it the hos- 
tility of the Roman government ; and the 
fact is undoubted, that some of its first 
teachers, who announced themselves to be 
the companions of our Saviour, and the 
eye-witnesses of the remarkable events 
in his history, suffered martyrdom for 
their adherence to the religion which they 
taught. 

The disposition of the Jews to the religion 
of Jesus was no less hostile ; and it mani- 
fested itself at a still earlier stage of the 
business. The causes of this hostility are 
obvious to all who are in the slightest de- 
gree conversant with the history of those 
times. It is true, that the Jews did not at 
all times possess the power of life and death ; 
nor was it competent for them to bring the 
Christians to execution by the exercise of 
legal authority. Still, however, their powers 
of mischief were considerable. Their wishes 
had always a certain controul over the mea- 
sures of the Roman governor ; and we know, 
that it was this controul which was the 
means of extorting from Pilate the unrigh- 
teous sentence by which the very first 
teacher of our religion was brought to a 
cruel and ignominious death. We also 
know, that under Herod Agrippa the power 
of life and death was vested in a Jewish 
sovereign, and that this power was actu- 
ally exerted against the most distinguished 
Christians of that time. Add to this, that 
the Jews had, at all times, the power of in- 
flicting the lesser punishments. They could 
whip, they could imprison. Besides all this, 
the Christians had to brave the frenzy of an 
enraged multitude ; and some of them actu- 
ally suffered martyrdom in the violence of 
the popular commotions. 

Nothing is more evident than the utter 
disgrace which was annexed by the world 
at large to the profession of Christianity at 
that period. Tacitus calls it " superstitio 
■exitiabilis," and accuses the Christians of 
enmity to mankind. By Epictetus and 
others, their heroism is termed obstinacy, 
and it was generally treated by the Roman 
governors as the infatuation of a miserable 
and despised people. There was none of 
that glory annexed to it which blazes 
around the martyrdom of a patriot or a 
philosopher. That constancy, which, in 
another case, would have made them, illus- 
trious, was held to be a contemptible folly, 
which only exposed them to the derision 
and insolence of the multitude. A name 
and a reputation in the world might sustain 
the dying moments of Socrates or Regulus ; 
but what earthly principles can account for 
the intrepidity of those poor and miserable 
outcasts, who consigned themselves to a vo- 



luntary martyrdom in the cause of their 
religion ? 

Having premised these observations, we 
offer the following alternative to the mind 
of every candid inquirer. The first Chris- 
tians either delivered a sincere testimony, 
or they imposed a story upon the world 
which they knew to be a fabrication. 

The persecutions to which the first Chris- 
tians voluntarily exposed themselves, com- 
pel us to adopt the first part of the alterna- 
tive. It is not to be conceived, that a man 
would resign fortune, and character, and 
life, in the assertion of what he knew to be 
a falsehood. The first Christians must have 
believed their story to be true ; and it only 
remains to prove, that if they believed it to 
be true, it must be true indeed. 

A voluntary martyrdom must be looked 
upon as the highest possible evidence which 
it is in the power of man to give of his sin- 
cerity. The martyrdom of Socrates has 
never been questioned, as an undeniable 
proof of the sincere devotion of his mind 
to the principles of that philosophy for 
which he suffered. The death of Arch- 
bishop Cranmer will be allowed by all to 
be a decisive evidence of his sincere re- 
jection of what he conceived to be the er- 
rors of Popery, and his thorough conviction 
in the truth of the opposite system. When 
the council of Geneva burnt Servetus, no 
one will question the sincerity of the latter's 
belief, however much he may question the 
truth of it. Now, m all these cases, the 
proof goes no farther than to establish the 
sincerity of the martyr's belief. It goes but 
a little way, indeed, in establishing the just- 
ness of it. This is a different question. A 
man may be mistaken, though he be sin- 
cere. His errors, if they are not seen to be 
such, will exercise all the influence and au- 
thority of truth over him. Martyrs have 
bled on the opposite sides of the question. 
It is impossible, then, to rest on this cir- 
cumstance as an argument for the truth of 
either system ; but the argument is always 
deemed incontrovertible, in as far as it goes 
to establish the sincerity of each of the par- 
ties, and that both died in the firm convic- 
tion of the doctrines which they professed. 

Now, the martyrdom of the first Chris- 
tians stands distinguished from all other ex- 
amples by this circumstance, that it not 
merely proves the sincerity of the martyr's 
belief, but it also proves that what he be- 
lieved was true. In other cases of martyr- 
dom, the sufferer, when he lays down his 
life, gives his testimony to the truth of an 
opinion. In the case of the Christians, when 
they laid down their lives, they gave their 
testimony to the truth of a fact of which 
they affirmed themselves to be the eye and 
the ear witnesses. The sincerity of both 
testimonies is unquestionable; but it is only 
in the latter case that the truth of the testi- 



IV.] 



TESTIMONY OF ORIGINAL WITNESSES. 



29 



mony follows as a necessary consequence 
of its sincerity. An opinion comes under 
the cognizance of the understanding, ever- 
liable, as we all know, to error and delusion. 
A fact comes under the cognizance of the 
senses, which have ever been esteemed as 
infallible, when they give their testimony to" 
such plain, and obvious, and palpable appear- 
ances, as those which make up the evan- 
gelical story. We are still at liberty to 
question the philosophy of Socrates, or the 
orthodoxy of Cranmer and Servetus ; but if 
we were told by a Christian teacher in the 
solemnity of his dying hour, and with the 
dreadful apparatus of martyrdom before 
him, that he saw Jesus after he had risen 
from the dead ; that he conversed with him 
many days; that he put his hand into the 
print of his sides ; and, in the ardour of his 
joyful conviction, exclaimed, "My Lord, 
and my God!" we should feel that there 
was no truth in the world, did this language 
and this testimony deceive us. 

If Christianity be not true, then the first 
Christians must have been mistaken as to 
the subject of their testimony. This suppo- 
sition is destroyed by the nature of the sub- 
ject. It was not testimony to a doctrine 
which might deceive the understanding. It 
was something more than testimony to a 
dream, or a trance, or a midnight fancy, 
which might deceive the imagination. It 
was testimony to a multitude, and a succes- 
sion of palpable facts, which could never 
have deceived the senses, and which pre- 
clude all possibility of mistake, even though 
it had been the testimony only of one indi- 
vidual. But when, in addition to this, we 
consider, that it is the testimony, not of one 
but of many individuals ; that it is a story 
repeated in a variety of forms, but substan- 
tially the same; that it is the concurring 
testimony of different eye-witnesses, or the 
companions of eye-witnesses — we may, af- 
ter this, take refuge in the idea of falsehood 
and collusion ; but it is not to be admitted, 
that these eight different writers of the 
New Testament, could have all blundered 
the matter with such method, and such 
uniformity. 

We know, that, in spite of the magnitude 
of their sufferings, there are infidels, who, 
driven from the first part of the alternative, 
have recurred to the second, and have af- 
firmed, that the glory of establishing a new 
religion, induced the first Christians to as- 
sert, and to persist in asserting, what they 
knew to be a falsehood. But (though we 
should be anticipating the last branch of the 
argument) they forget, that we have the 
concurrence of two parties to the truth of 
Christianity, and that it is the conduct only 
of one of the parties, which can be account- 
ed for by the supposition in question. The 
two parties are the teachers and the taught. 
The former may aspire to the glory of i 



founding a new faith ; but what glory did 
the latter propose to themselves from being 
the dupes of an imposition so ruinous to 
every earthly interest, and held in such 
low and disgraceful estimation by the world 
at large? Abandon the teachers of Chris- 
tianity to every imputation which infidelity, 
on the rack for conjectures to give plausi- 
bility to its system, can desire, how shall 
we explain the concurrence of its disciples ? 
There may be a glory in leading, but we 
see no glory in being led. If Christianity 
were false, and Paul had the effrontery to 
appeal to his five hundred living witnesses, 
whom he alleges to have seen Christ after 
his resurrection, the submissive acquies- 
cence of his disciples remains a very inex- 
plicable circumstance. The same Paul, in 
his epistles to the Corinthians, tells them 
that some of them had the gift of healing, 
and the power of working miracles; and 
that the signs of an apostle had been 
wrought among them in wonders and 
mighty deeds. A man aspiring to the glory 
of an accredited teacher, would never have 
committed himself on a subject, where his 
falsehood could have been so readily ex- 
posed. And in the veneration with which 
we know his epistles to have been preserved 
by the church of Corinth, we have not 
merely the testimony of their writer to the 
truth of the Christian miracles, but the tes- 
timony of a whole people, who had no in- 
terest in being deceived. 

Had Christianity been false, the reputa- 
tion of its first teachers lay at the mercy of 
every individual among the numerous pro- 
selytes which they had gained to their sys- 
tem. It may not be competent for an un- 
lettered peasant to detect the absurdity of a 
doctrine; but he can at all times lift his 
testimony against a fact, said to have hap- 
pened in his presence, and under the ob- 
servation of his senses. Now it so happens, 
that in a number of the epistles, there are 
allusions to, or express intimations of, the 
miracles that had been wrought in the dif- 
ferent churches to which these epistles are 
addressed. How comes it, if it be all a fa- 
brication, that it was never exposed ? We 
know, that some of the disciples were 
driven, by the terrors of persecuting vio- 
lence, to resign their profession. How 
should it happen, that none of them ever 
attempted to vindicate their apostacy, by 
laying open the artifice and insincerity of 
their Christian teachers? We may be sure 
that such a testimony would have been 
highly acceptable to the existing authorities 
of~ that period. The Jews would have 
made the most of it ; and the vigilant and 
discerning officers of the Roman govern- 
ment would not have failed to turn it to ac- 
count. The mystery would have been ex- 
posed and laid open, and the curiosity of 
latter ages would have been satisfied as to 



30! 



TESTIMONY OF SUBSEQUENT WITNESSES. 



[CHAP. 



the wonderful and unaccountable steps by 
which a religion could make such head in 
the world, though it rested its whole autho- 
rity on facts, the falsehood of which was 
accessible to all who were at the trouble to 
inquire about them. But no ! We hear of 
no such testimony from the apostates of 
that period. We read of some, who, ago- 
nized at the reflection of their treachery, 
returned to their first profession, and expi- 



ated, by martyrdom, the guilt which they 
felt they had incurred by their dereliction 
of the truth. This furnishes a strong ex- 
ample of the power of conviction, and 
when we join with it, that it is conviction 
in the integrity of those teachers who ap- 
pealed to miracles which had been wrought 
among them, it appears to us a testimony 
in favour of our religion which is altogether 
irresistible. 



CHAPTER V. 

On the Testimony of Subsequent Witnesses. 



IV. But this brings us to the last division 
of the argument, viz. that the leading facts 
in the history of the Gospel are corrobo- 
rated by the testimony of others. 

The evidence we have already brought 
forward for the antiquity of the New Tes- 
tament, and the veneration in which it was 
held from the earliest ages of the church, is 
an implied testimony of all the Christians 
of that period to the truth of the Gospel his- 
tory. By proving the authenticity of St. 
Paul's Epistles to the Corinthians, we not 
merely establish his testimony to the truth 
of the Christian miracles, — we establish the 
additional testimony of the whole church 
of Corinth, who would never have respect- 
ed these Epistles, if Paul had ventured 
upon a falsehood so open to detection, as 
the assertion, that miracles were wrought 
among them, which not a single individual 
ever witnessed. By proving the authen- 
ticity of the New Testament at large, we 
secure, not merely that argument, which is 
founded on the testimony and concurrence 
of its different writers, but also the testi- 
mony of those immense multitudes, who, in 
distant countries, submitted to the New 
Testament as the rule of their faith. The 1 
testimony of the teachers, whether we take 
into consideration the subject of that testi- 
mony, or the circumstances under which it 
was delivered, is of itself a stronger argu- 
ment for the truth of the Gospel history, 
than can be alleged for the truth of any 
other history, which has been transmitted 
down to us from ancient times. The con- 
currence of the taught carries along with 
it a host of additional testimonies, which 
gives an evidence to the evangelical story, 
that is altogether unexampled. On a point 
of ordinary history, the testimony of Ta- 
citus is held decisive, because it is not 
contradicted. The history of the New Tes- 
tament is not only not contradicted, but 
confirmed by the strongest possible ex- 
pressions which men can give of their ac- 
quiescence in its truth ; by thousands who 



were either agents or eye-witnesses of the 
transactions recorded, who could not be 
deceived, who had no interest, and no 
glory to gain by supporting a falsehood, 
and who, by their sufferings in the cause 
of what they professed to be their belief, 
gave the highest evidence that human na- 
ture can give of sincerity. 

In this circumstance, it may be perceiv- 
ed how much the evidence for Christianity 
goes beyond all ordinary historical evi- 
dence. A profane historian relates a se- 
ries of events which happen in a particu- 
lar age ; and we count it well, if it be his 
own age, and if the history which he gives 
us be the testimony of a contemporary au- 
thor. Another historian succeeds him at 
the distance of years, and, by repeating the 
same story, gives the additional evidence 
of his testimony to its truth. A third his- 
torian perhaps goes over the same ground, 
and lends another confirmation to the his- 
tory. And it is thus, by collecting all the 
lights which are thinly scattered over the 
tract of ages and of centuries, that we ob- 
tain all the evidence which can be got, and 
all the evidence that is generally wish- 
ed for. 

Now, there is room for a thousand pre- 
sumptions, which, if admitted, would over- 
turn the whole of this evidence. For any 
thing we know, the first historians may 
have had some interest in disguising the 
truth, or substituting in its place a false- 
hood, and a fabrication. True, it has not 
been contradicted, but they form a very 
small number of men, who feel strongly or 
particularly interested in a question of his- 
tory. The literary and speculative men of 
that age may have perhaps been engaged 
in other pursuits, or their testimonies may 
have perished in the wreck of centuries. 
The second historian may have been so far 
removed in point of time from the events of 
his narratives, that he can furnish us, not 
with an independent, but with a derived 
testimony. He may have copied his ac- 



TESTIMONY OF SUBSEQUENT WRITERS. 



31 



count from the original historian, and the 
falsehood have come down to us in the 
shape of an authentic and well-attested his- 
tory. Presumptions may be multiplied with- 
out end ; yet in spite of them, there is a 
natural confidence in the veracity of man, 
which disposes us to as firm a belief in 
many of the facts of ancient history, as in 
the occurrences of the present day. 

The history of the Gospel, however, 
stands distinguished from all other history 
by the uninterrupted nature of its testimony, 
which carries down its evidence, without a 
chasm, from its earliest promulgation to the 
present day. We do not speak of the su- 
perior weight and splendour of its evidences, 
at the first publication of that history, as be- 
ing supported, not merely by the testimony 
of one, but by the concurrence of several 
independent witnesses. We do not speak 
of its subsequent writers, who follow one 
another in a far closer and more crowded 
train, than there is any other example of in 
the history or literature of the world. We 
speak of the strong though unwritten testi- 
mony of its numerous proselytes, who, in 
the very fact of their proselytism, give the 
strongest possible confirmation to the Gos- 
pel, and fill up every chasm in the recorded 
evidence of past times. 

In the written testimonies for the truth 
of the Christian religion, Barnabas comes 
next in order to the first promulgators of 
the evangelical story. He was a contem- 
porary of the apostles, and writes a very 
few years after the publication of the pieces 
which make up the New Testament. Clem- 
ent follows, who was a fellow-labourer of 
Paul, and writes an epistle in the name of 
the church of Rome, to the church of 
Corinth. The written testimonies follow 
one another with a closeness and a rapidity 
of which there is no example; but what 
we insist on at present, is the unwritten 
and implied testimony of the people who 
composed these two churches. There can be 
no fact better established, than that these 
two churches were planted in the days of 
the apostles, and that the Epistles which 
were respectively addressed to them, were 
held in the utmost authority and veneration. 
There is no doubt, that the leading facts of 
the Gospel history were familiar to them ; 
that it was in the power of many individu- 
als amongst them to verify these facts, 
either by their own personal observation, or 
by an actual conversation with eye-witness- 
es; and that in particular, it was in the 
power of almost every individual in the 
church of Corinth, either to verify the mi- 
racles which St. Paul alludes to, in his 
epistle to that church, or to detect and ex- 
pose the imposition, had there been no 
foundation for such an allusion. W T hat do 
• we see in all this, but the strongest possible 
j testimony of a whole people to the truth of 



the Christian miracles'? There is nothing 
like this in common history, — the forma- 
tion of a society, which can only be ex- 
plained by the history of the Gospel, and 
where the conduct of every individual fur- 
nishes a distinct pledge and evidence of its 
truth. And to have a full view of the argu- 
ment, we must reflect, that it is not one, but 
many societies, scattered over the different 
countries of the world ; that the principle 
upon which each society was formed, was 
the divine authority of Christ and his apos- 
tles, resting upon the recorded miracles of 
the New Testament; that these miracles 
were wrought with a publicity, and at a 
nearness of time, which rendered them ac- 
cessible to the inquiries of all, for upwards 
of half a century; that nothing but the 
power of conviction could have induced the 
people of that age to embrace a religion so 
disgraced and so persecuted; that every 
temptation was held out for its disciples 
to abandon it; and that though some of 
them, overpowered by the terrors of pun- 
ishment, were driven to apostacy, yet not 
one of them has left us a testimony which 
can impeach the miracles of Christianity, or 
the integrity of its first teachers. 

It may be observed, that in pursuing the 
line of continuity from the days of the apos- 
tles, the written testimonies for the truth 
of the Christian miracles follow one another 
in closer succession, than we have any 
other example of in ancient history. But 
what gives such peculiar and unprecedent- 
ed evidence to the history of the Gospel is, 
that in the concurrence of the multitudes 
who embraced it, and in the existence of 
those numerous churches and societies of 
men who espoused the profession of the 
Christian faith, we cannot but perceive, 
that every small interval of time between 
the written testimonies of authors is filled 
up by materials so strong and so firmly ce- 
mented, as to present us with an unbroken 
chain of evidence, carrying as much au- 
thority along. with it, as if it had been a di- 
urnal record, commencing from the days of 
the apostles, and authenticated through its 
whole progress by the testimony of thou- 
sands. 

Every convert to the Christian faith in 
those days, gives one additional testimony 
to the truth of the Gospel history. Is he a 
Gentile ? The sincerity of his testimony is 
approved by the persecutions, the suffer- 
ings, the danger, and often the certainty of 
martyrdom, which the profession of Chris- 
tianity incurred. Is he a Jew? The sin- 
cerity of his testimony is approved by all 
these evidences, and in addition to them by 
this well known fact, that the faith and doc- 
trine of Christianity were in the highest de- 
gree repugnant to the wishes and prejudices 
of that people. It ought never to be for- 
gotten, that in as far as Jews are concerned 



32 



TESTIMONY OF SUBSEQUENT WRITERS. 



[CHAP. 



Christianity does not owe a single proselyte 
to its doctrines, but to the power and credit 
of its evidences, and that Judea was the 
chief theatre on which these evidences were 
exhibited. It cannot be too often repeated, 
that these evidences rest not upon argu- 
ments, but upon facts ; and that the time, 
and the place, and the circumstances, ren- 
dered these facts accessible to the inquiries 
of all who chose to be at the trouble of this 
examination. And there can be no doubt 
that this trouble was taken, whether we re- 
flect on the nature of the Christian faith, as 
being so offensive to the pride and bigotry 
of the Jewish people, or whether we reflect 
on the consequences of embracing it, which 
were derision, and hatred, and banishment, 
and death. We may be sure, that a step 
which involved in it such painful sacrifices, 
would not be entered into upon light and 
insufficient grounds. In the sacrifices they 
made, the Jewish converts gave every evi- 
dence of having delivered an honest testi- 
mony in favour of the Christian miracles ; 
and when we reflect, that many of them 
must have been eye-witnesses, and all of 
them had it in their power to verify these 
miracles, by conversation and correspond- 
ence with by-standers, there can be no 
doubt, that it was not merely an honest, but 
a competent testimony. There is no fact 
better established, than that many thou- 
sands among the Jews believed in Jesus 
and his apostles; and we have therefore to 
allege their conversion, as a strong ad- 
ditional confirmation to the written testi- 
mony of the original historians. 

One of the popular objections against the 
truth of the Christian miracles, is the gene- 
ral infidelity of the Jewish people. We are 
convinced, that at the moment of proposing 
this objection, an actual delusion exists in 
the mind of the infidel. In his conception, 
the Jews and the Christians stand opposed 
to each other. In the belief of the latter, 
he sees nothing but a party or an interested 
testimony, and in the unbelief of the for- 
mer, he sees a whole people persevering in 
their ancient faith, and resisting the new 
faith on the ground of its insufficient evi- 
dences. He forgets all the while, that the 
testimony of a great many of these Chris- 
tians, is in fact the testimony of Jews. He 
only attends to them in their present ca- 
pacity. He contemplates them in the light 
of Christians, and annexes to them all that 
suspicion and incredulity which are gene- 
rally annexed to the testimony of an in- 
terested party. He is aware of what they 
are at present, Christians and defenders of 
Christianity; but he has lost sight of their 
original situation, and is totally unmindful 
of this circumstance, that in their transition 
from Judaism to Christianity, they have 
given him the very evidence he is in quest 
of. Had another thousand of these Jews 



renounced the faith of their ancestors, and 
embraced the religion of Jesus, they would 
have been equivalent to a thousand ad- 
ditional testimonies in favour of Christiani- 
ty, and testimonies too of the strongest and 
most unsuspicious kind, that can well be 
imagined. But this evidence would make no 
impression on the mind of an infidel, and 
the strength of it is disguised, even from 
the eyes of the Christian. These thousand, 
in the moment of their conversion, lose the 
appellation of Jews, and merge into the 
name and distinction of Christians. The 
Jews, though diminished in number, retain 
the national appellation ; and the obstinacy 
with which they persevere in the belief of 
their ancestors, is still looked upon as the 
adverse testimony of an entire people. So 
long as one of that people continues a Jew, 
his testimony is looked upon as a serious im- 
pediment in the way of Christian evidences. 
But the moment he becomes a Christian, his 
motives are contemplated with distrust. He 
is one of the obnoxious and suspected party. 
The mind carries a reference only to what 
he is, and not to what he has been. It over- 
looks the change of sentiment, and forgets, 
that, in the renunciation of old habits, and old 
prejudices, in defiance to sufferings and dis- 
grace, in attachment to a religion so repug- 
nant to the pride and bigotry of their nation, 
and above all, in submission to a system of 
doctrines which rested its authority on the 
miracles of their own time, and their own 
remembrance, every Jewish convert gives 
the most decisive testimony which man 
can give for the truth and divinity of our 
religion. 

But why, then, says the infidel, did they 
not all believe? Had the miracles of the 
Gospel been true, w T e do not see how hu- 
man nature could have held out against an 
evidence so striking and so extraordinary ; 
nor can we at all enter into the obstinacy 
of that belief which is ascribed to the ma- 
jority of the Jewish people, and which led 
them to shut their eyes against a testimony 
that no man of common sense could have 
resisted. 

Many Christian writers have attempted 
to resolve this difficulty, and to prove that 
the infidelity of the Jews, in spite of the 
miracles which they saw, is perfectly con- 
sistent with the known principles of human 
nature. For this purpose, they have en- 
larged, with much force and plausibility, on 
the strength and inveteracy of the Jewish 
prejudices — on the bewildering influence 
of religious bigotry upon the understand- 
ing of men — on the woeful disappointment 
which Christianity offered to the pride and 
interest of the nation — on the selfishness of 
the priesthood — and on the facility with 
which they might turn a blind and fanaticaj 
multitude, who had been trained, by theii 
earliest habits, to follow and to revere them t 



TESTIMONY OF SUBSEQUENT WRITERS. 



In the Gospel history itself, we have a 
very consistent account at least of the Jew- 
ish opposition to the claims of our Saviour. 
We see the deeply wounded pride of a na- 
tion, that felt itself disgraced by the loss of 
its independence. We see the arrogance 
of its peculiar and exclusive claims to the 
favour of the Almighty. We see the antici- 
pation of a great prince, who was to deliver 
them from the power and subjection of their 
enemies. We see their insolent contempt 
for the people of other countries, and the 
foulest scorn that they should be admitted 
to an equality with themselves in the hon- 
ours and benefits of a revelation from hea- 
ven. We may easily conceive, how much 
the doctrine of Christ and his apostles was 
calculated to gall, and irritate, and disap- 
point them; how it must have mortified 
their national vanity; how it must have 
alarmed the jealousy of an artful and in- 
terested priesthood ; and how it must have 
scandalized the great body of the people, 
by the liberality with which it addressed it- 
self to all men, and to all nations, and raised 
to an elevation with themselves, those 
whom the firmest habits and prejudices of 
their country had led them to contemplate 
under all the disgrace and ignominy of 
outcasts. 

Accordingly, we know, in fact, that bitter- 
ness, and resentment, and wounded pride, 
lay at the bottom of a great deal of the op- 
position, which Christianity experienced 
from the Jewish people. In the New Tes- 
tament history itself, we see repeated ex- 
amples of their outrageous violence; and 
this is confirmed by the testimony of many 
other writers. In the history of the mar- 
tyrdom of Polycarp, it is stated, that the 
Gentiles and Jews inhabiting Smyrna, in a 
furious rage, and with a loud voice, cried 
out, " This is the teacher of Asia, the father 
of the Christians, the destroyer of our gods, 
who teaches all men not to sacrifice, nor to 
worship them !" They collected wood, and 
the dried branches of trees for his pile; and 
ft is added, "the Jews also, according to 
custom, assisting with the greatest forward- 
ness." It is needless to multiply testimo- 
nies to a point so generally understood ; as, 
that it was not conviction alone, which lay 
at the bottom of their opposition to the 
Christians; that a great deal of passion en- 
tered into it; and that their numerous acts 
of hostility against the worshippers of Jesus, 
carry in them all the marks of fury and re- 
6entment. 

Now we know that the power of passion 
will often carry it very far over the power 
of conviction. We know that the strength 
of conviction is not in proportion to the 
quantity of evidence presented, but to the 
quantity of evidence attended to, and per- 
ceived, in consequence of that attention. 
We also know, that attention is, in a great 



measure, a voluntary act; and that it is 
often in the power of the mind, both to turn 
away its attention from what would land 
it in any painful or humiliating conclusion, 
and to deliver itself up exclusively to those 
arguments which flatter its taste and its 
prejudices. All this lies within the range 
of familiar and every-day experience. We 
all know how much it insures the success 
of an argument, when it gets a favourable 
hearing. In by far the greater number of 
instances, the parties in a litigation are not 
merely each attached to their own side of 
the question; but each confident and be- 
lieving that theirs is the side on which jus- 
tice lies. In those contests of opinion, which 
take place every day between man and 
man, and particularly if passion and in- 
terest have any share in the controversy, 
it is evident to the slightest observation, 
that though it might have been selfishness, 
in the first instance, which gave a peculiar 
direction to the understanding, yet each of 
the parties often comes, at last, to entertain 
a sincere conviction in the truth of his own 
argument. It is not that truth is not one 
and immutable. The whole difference lies 
in the observers ; each of them viewing the 
object through the medium of his own pre- 
judices, or cherishing those peculiar habits 
of attention and understanding, to which 
taste or inclination had disposed him. 

In addition to all this, we know, that 
though the evidence for a particular truth 
be so glaring, that it forces itself upon the 
understanding, and all the sophistry of pas- 
sion and interest cannot withstand it; yet 
if this truth be of a very painful and hu- 
miliating kind, the obstinacy of man will 
often dispose him to resist its influence, 
and, in the bitterness of his malignant feel- 
ings, to carry a hostility against it, and that 
too in proportion to the weight of the argu- 
ment which may be brought forward in its 
favour. 

Now, if we take into account the inveteracy 
of the Jewish prejudices, and reflect how un- 
palatable and how mortifying to their pride 
must have been the doctrine of a crucified 
Saviour ; we believe that their conduct, ii» 
reference to Christianity and its miraculous 
evidences, presents us with nothing anoma- 
lous or inexplicable, and that it will appear 
a possible and a likely thing to every un- 
derstanding, that has been much cultivated 
in the experience of human affairs, in the 
nature of mind, and in the science of its 
character and phenomena. 

There is a difficulty, however, in the way 
of this investigation. From the nature of 
the case, it bears no resemblance to any 
thing else, that has either been recorded in 
history, or has come within the range of 
our own personal observation. There is no 
other example of a people called upon to 
renounce the darling faith and principles 



34 



TESTIMONY OF SUBSEQUENT WRITERS. 



[CHAF. 



of their country, and that upon the au- 
thority of miracles exhibited before them. 
All the experience we have about the ope- 
ration of prejudice, and the perverseness of 
the human temper and understanding, can- 
not afford a complete solution of the ques- 
tion. In many respects, it is a case sui 
generis, and the only creditable information 
which we can obtain to enlighten us in this 
inquiry, is through the medium of that very 
testimony upon which the difficulty in ques- 
tion has thrown the suspicion that we want 
to get rid of. 

Let us give all the weight to this argu- 
ment of which it is susceptible, and the fol- 
lowing is the precise degree in which it 
affects the merits of the controversy. When 
the religion of Jesus was promulgated in 
Judea, its first teachers appealed to miracles 
wrought by themselves in the face of day, 
as the evidence of their being commissioned 
by God. Many adopted the new religion 
upon this appeal, and many rejected it. An 
argument in favour of Christianity is de- 
rived from the conduct of the first. An 
objection against Christianity is derived 
from the conduct of the second. Now, 
allowing that we are not in possession of 
experience enough for estimating, in abso- 
lute terms, the strength of the objection, we 
propose the following as a solid and unex- 
ceptionable principle, upon which to esti- 
mate a comparison between the strength of 
the objection and the strength of the argu- 
ment. We are sure that the first would not 
have embraced Christianity had its miracles 
been false ; but we are not sure beforehand, 
whether the second would have rejected 
this religion on the supposition of the mi- 
racles being true. If experience does not 
enlighten us as to how far the exhibition of 
a real miracle would be effectual in in- 
ducing men to renounce their old and 
favourite opinions, we v can infer nothing 
decisive from the conduct of those who still 
kept by the Jewish religion. This conduct 
was a matter of uncertainty, and any argu- 
ment which many be extracted from it can- 
not be depended upon. But the case is 
widely different with that party of their na- 
tion who were converted from Judaism to 
Christianity. We know that the alleged 
miracles of Christianity were perfectly open 
to examination. We are sure, from our ex- 
perience of human nature, that in a ques- 
tion so interesting, this examination would 
be given. We know, from the very nature 
of the miraculous facts, so remote from 
every thing like what would be attempted 
by jugglery, or pretended to by enthusiasm, 
that, if this examination were given, it would 
fix the truth or falsehood of the miracles. 
The truth of these miracles, then, for any 
thing we know, may be consistent with the 
the conduct of the Jewish party ; but the 
falsehood of these miracles, from all that 



we do know of human nature, is not con- 
sistent with the conduct of the Christian 
party. Granting that we are not sure whe- 
ther a miracle would force the Jewish na- 
tion to renounce their opinions, all that we 
can say of the conduct of the Jewish party 
is, that we are not able to explain it. But 
there is one thing that we are sure of. We 
are sure, that if the pretensions of Chris- 
tianity be false, it never could have forced 
any part of the Jewish nation to renounce 
their opinions, with its alleged miracles, so 
open to detection, and its doctrines so of- 
fensive to every individual. The conduct 
of the Christian party, then, is not only 
what we are able to explain, but we can say 
with certainty, that it admits of no other 
explanation than the truth of that hypothesis 
which we contend for. We may not know 
in how far an attachment to existing opin- 
ions will prevail over an argument wiiich 
is felt to be true ; but we are sure, that this 
attachment will never give way to an argu- 
ment which is perceived to be false ; and 
particularly when danger, and hatred, and 
persecution, are the consequences of em- 
bracing it. The argument for Christianity, 
from the conduct of the first proselytes, 
rests upon the firm ground of experience. 
The objection against it, from the conduct 
of the unbelieving Jews, has no experience 
whatever to rest upon. 

The conduct of the Jews may be consi- 
dered as a solitary fact in the history of the 
world, not from its being an exception to 
the general principles of human nature, but 
from its being an exhibition of human na- 
ture in singular circumstances. We have 
no experience to guide us in our opinion as 
to the probability of his conduct ; and no- 
thing, therefore, that can impeach a testimo- 
ny which all experience in human affairs 
leads us to repose in as unquestionable. 
But after this testimony is admitted, we may 
submit to be enlightened by it ; and in the 
history which it gives us of the unbelieving 
Jews, it furnishes a curious fact as to the 
power of prejudice upon the human mind, 
and a valuable accession to what we before 
knew of the principles of our nature. It lays 
before us an exhibition of the human mind in 
a situation altogether unexampled, and fur- 
nishes us with the result of a singular ex- 
periment, if we may so call it, in the history 
of the species. We offer it as an interesting 
fact to the moral and intellectual philoso- 
pher, that a previous attachment may sway 
the mind even against the impression of a 
miracle ; and those who believe not in the 
historical evidence which established the 
authority of Christ and of the apostles, 
would not believe even though one rose 
from the dead. 

We are inclined to think, that the argu- 
ment has come down to us in the best pos- 
sible form, and that it would have been en- 



TESTIMONY OF SUBSEQUENT WRITERS. 



35 



feebled by that very circumstance, which 
the infidel demands as essential to its vali- 
dity. Suppose for a moment that we could 
give him what he wants, that all the priests 
and people of Judea were so borne down by 
the resistless evidence of miracles, as by one 
universal consent to become the disciples 
of the new religion. What interpretation 
might have been given to this unanimous 
movement in favour- of Christianity '? A 
very unfavourable one, we apprehend, to 
the authenticity of its evidences. Will the- 
infidel say, that he has a higher respect for 
the credibility of those miracles which 
ushered in the dispensation of Moses, be- 
cause they were exhibited in the face of a 
whole people, and gained their unexcepted 
submission to the laws and the ritual of Ju- 
daism ? This new revolution would have 
received the same explanation. We would 
have heard of its being sanctioned by their 
prophecies, of its being agreeable to their 
prejudices, of its being supported by the 
countenance and encouragement of their 
priesthood, and that the jugglery of its mi- 
racles imposed upon all, because all were 
willing to be deceived by them. The ac- 
tual form in which the history has come 
down, presents us with an argument free 
of all these exceptions. We, in the first in- 
stance, behold a number of proselytes, 
whose testimony to the facts of Christianity 
is approved of by what they lost and suffer- 
ed in the maintenance of their faith ; and 
we, in the second instance, behold a num- 
ber of enemies, eager, vigilant, and exaspe- 
rated at the progress of the new religion, 
who have not questioned the authenticity 
of our histories, and whose silence, as to 
the public and widely talked of miracles of 
Christ and his apostles, we have a right to 
interpret into the most triumphant of all 
estimonies. 

The same process of reasoning is applica- 
ble to the case of the Gentiles. Many adopt- 
ed the new religion, and many rejected it. 
We may not be sure, if we can give an 
adequate explanation of the conduct of the 
latter on the supposition that the evidences 
are true ; but we are perfectly sure, that we 
can give no adequate explanation of the con- 
duct of the former, on the supposition that 
the evidences are false. For any thing we 
know, it is possible that the one party may 
have adhered to their former prejudices, in 
opposition to all the force and urgency of 
argument, which even an authentic miracle 
carries along with it. But we know that it 
is not possible that the other party should 
renounce these prejudices, and that too in 
the face of danger and persecution, unless 
the miracles had been authentic. So great 
is the difference between the strength of the 
argument and the strength of the objection, 
that we count it fortunate for the merits of 
the cause, that the conversions to Christi- 



anity were partial. We, in this way, se- 
cure all the support which is derived from 
the inexplicable fact of the silence of its 
enemies, inexplicable on every supposition, 
but the undeniable evidence and certainty 
of the miracles. Had the Roman empire 
made a unanimous movement to the new 
-religion, and all the authorities of the state 
lent their concurrence to it, there would have 
been a suspicion annexed to the whole his- 
tory of the Gospel, which cannot at present 
apply to it ; and from the collision of the 
opposite parties, the truth has come down 
to us in a far more unquestionable form than 
if no such collision had been excited. 

The silence of Heathen and Jewish wri- 
ters of that period, about the miracles of 
Christianity, has been much insisted upon 
by the enemies of our religion; and has 
even excited something like a painful suspi- 
cion in the breasts of those who are attach- 
ed to its cause. Certain it is, that no an- 
cient facts have come down to us, support- 
ed by a greater quantity of historical 
evidence, and better accompanied with all 
the circumstances which can confer credi- 
bility on that evidence. When we demand 
the testimony of Tacitus to the Christian 
miracles, we forget all the while that we 
can allege a multitude of much more de- 
cisive testimonies ; no less than eight con- 
temporary authors, and a train of succeed- 
ing writers, who follow one another with a 
closeness and a rapidity, of which there is 
no example in any other department of an- 
cient history. We forget that the authenti- 
city of these different writers, and their 
pretensions to credit, are founded on conside- 
rations, perfectly the same in kind, though 
much stronger in degree, than what have 
been employed to establish the testimony 
of the most esteemed historians of former 
ages. For the history of the Gospel, we 
behold a series of testimonies, more con- 
tinuous, and more firmly sustained, than 
there is any other example of in the whole 
compass of erudition. And to refuse this 
evidence, is a proof that in this investiga- 
tion there is an aptitude in the human mind 
to abandon all ordinary principles, and to 
be carried away by the delusions which we 
have already insisted on. 

But let us try the effect of that testimony 
which our antagonists demand. Tacitus 
has actually attested the existence of Jesus 
Christ; the reality of such a personage; 
his miblic execution under the administra- 
tion of Pontius Pilate ; the temporary check 
which this gave to the progress of his reli- 
gion ; its revival a short time after his death ; 
its progress over the land of Judea, and to 
Rome itself, the metropolis of the empire:— 
all this we have in a Roman historian ; and, 
in opposition to all established reasoning 
upon these subjects, it is by some more firm- 
ly confided in upon his testimony, than upon 



TESTIMONY OF SUBSEQUENT WRITERS. 



[CHAP. 



the numerous and concurring testimonies 
of nearer and contemporary writers. But 
be this as it may, let us suppose that Taci- 
tus had thrown one particular more into his 
testimony, and that his sentence had run 
thus ; " They had their denomination from 
Christus, who, in the reign of Tiberius, was 
put to death as a criminal by the procura- 
tor Pontius Pilate, and who rose from the 
dead on the third day after his execution, 
and ascended into heaven." Does it not 
strike every body, that however true the 
last piece of information may be, and how- 
ever well established by its proper historians, 
this is not the place where we can expect 
to find it ? If Tacitus did not believe the 
resurrection of our Saviour, (which is pro- 
bably the case, as he never, in all likelihood, 
paid any attention to the evidence of a faith 
which he was led to regard, from the outset, 
as a pernicious superstition, and a mere mo- 
dification of Judaism,) it is not to be sup- 

Eosed that such an assertion could ever 
ave been made by him. If Tacitus did be- 
lieve the resurrection of our Saviour, he 
gives us an example of what appears not to 
have been uncommon in these ages — he 
gives us an example of a man adhering to 
that system which interest and education 
recommended, in opposition to the evidence 
of a miracle which he admitted to be true. 
Still, even on this supposition, it is the most 
unlikely thing in the world, that he would 
have admitted the fact of our Saviour's re- 
surrection into his history. It is most im- 
probable, that a testimony of this kind 
would have been given, even though the 
resurrection of Jesus Christ be admitted; 
and, therefore, the want of this testimony 
carries in it no argument that the resurrec- 
tion is a falsehood. If, however, in opposi- 
tion to all probability, this testimony had 
been given, it would have been appealed to 
as a most striking confirmation of the main 
fact of the evangelical history. It would 
have figured away in all our elementary 
treatises, and been referred to as a master 
argument in every exposition of the evi- 
dences of Christianity. Infidels would have 
been challenged to believe in it on the strength 
of their own favourite evidence, the evidence 
of a classical historian ; and must have been 
at a loss how to dispose of this fact, when 
they saw an unbiassed heathen giving his 
round and unqualified testimony in its fa- 
vour. 

Let us now carry the supposition a step 
farther. Let us conceive that Tacitus not 
only believed the fact, and gave his testimo- 
ny to it, but that he believed it so far as to 
become a Christian. Is his testimony to be 
refused, because he gives this evidence of 
its sincerity ? Tacitus asserting the fact, and 
remaining a heathen, is not so strong an 
argument for the truth of our Saviour's re- 
surrection, as Tacitus asserting the fact and 



becoming a Christian in consequence of it. 
Yet the moment that this transition is 
made — a transition by which, in point of 
fact, his testimony becomes stronger — in 
point of impression it becomes less ; and, 
by a delusion, common to the infidel and 
the believer, the argument is held to be 
weakened by the very circumstance which 
imparts greater force to it. The elegant and 
accomplished scholar becomes a believer. 
The truth, the novelty, the importance of 
this new subject, withdraw him from every 
other pursuit. He shares in the common 
enthusiasm of the cause, and gives all his 
talents and eloquence to the support of it. 
Instead of the Roman historian, Tacitus 
comes down to posterity in the shape of a 
Christian father, and the high authority of 
his name is lost in a crowd of similar testi- 
monies. 

A direct testimony to the miracles of the 
New Testament from the mouth of a hea- 
then, is not to be expected. We cannot 
satisfy this demand of the infidel ; but we 
can give him a host of much stronger tes- 
timonies than he is in quest of— the testi- 
monies of those men who were heathens, 
and who embraced a hazardous and a dis- 
graceful profession, under a deep conviction 
of those facts to which they gave their testi- 
mony. " O, but you now land us in the tes- 
timony of Christians !" This is very true; 
but it is the very fact of their being Chris- 
tians in which the strength of the argument 
lies : and in each of the numerous fathers 
of the Christian church, we see a stronger 
testimony than the required testimony of 
the heathen Tacitus. We see men who, 
if they had not been Christians, would have 
risen to as high an eminence as Tacitus in 
the literature of the times; and whose direct 
testimonies to the gospel history would, in 
that case, have been most impressive, even 
to the mind of an infidel. And are these 
testimonies to be less impressive, because 
they were preceded by conviction, and seal- 
ed by martyrdom ? 

Yet though, from the nature of the case, 
no direct testimony to the Christian mira- 
cles from a heathen can be looked for, there 
are heathen testimonies which form an im- 
portant accession to the Christian argu- 
ment. Such are the testimonies to the state 
of Judea; the testimonies to those nume- 
rous particulars in government and cus- 
toms, which are so often alluded to in the 
New Testament, and give it the air of an 
authentic history ; and above all, the testi- 
monies to the sufferings of the primitive 
Christians, from which we learn, through a 
channel clear of every suspicion, that Chris- 
tianity, a religion of facts, was the object of 
persecution at a time, when eye-witnesses 
taught and eye-witnesses must have bled 
for it. 

The silence of Jewish and heathen wri- 



TESTIMONY OF SUBSEQUENT WRITERS. 



37 



ters, when the true interpretation is given 
to it, is all on the side of the Christian argu- 
ment. Even though the miracles of the 
Gospel had been believed to be true, it is 
most unlikely that the enemies of the Chris- 
tian religion would have given their testi- 
mony to them ; and the absence of this tes- 
timony is no impeachment therefore upon 
the reality of these miracles. But if the 
miracles of the Gospel had been believed to 
be false, it is most likely that this falsehood 
would have been asserted by the Jews and 
heathens of that period ; and the circum- 
stance of no such assertion having been 
given, is a strong argument for the reality 
of these miracles. Their silence in not as- 
serting the miracles, is perfectly consistent 
with their truth ; but their silence in not de- 
nying them, is not at all consistent with 
their falsehood. The entire silence of Jo- 
sephus upon the subject of Christianity, 
though he wrote after the destruction of Je- 
rusalem, and gives us the history of that pe- 
riod in which Christ and his apostles lived, 
is certainly a very striking circumstance. 
The sudden progress of Christianity at that 
time, and the fame of its miracles, (if not 
the miracles themselves,) form an impor- 
tant part of the Jewish history. How came 
Josephus to abstain from every particular 
respecting it ? Will you reverse every prin- 
ciple of criticism, and make the silence of 
Josephus carry it over the positive testi- 
mony of the many historical documents 
which have come down to us 1 If you re- 
fuse every Christian testimony upon the 
subject, you will not refuse the testimony 
of Tacitus, who asserts, that this religion 
spread over Judea, and reached the city 
of Rome, and was looked upon as an evil 
of such importance, that it became the ob- 
ject of an authorised persecution by the 
Roman government ; * and all this several 
years before the destruction of Jerusalem, 
and before Josephus composed his history. 
Whatever opinion may be formed as to the 
truth of Christianity, certain it is, that its 
progress constituted an object of sufficient 
magnitude, to compel the attention of any 
historian who undertook the affairs of that 
period. How then shall we account for the 
scrupulous and determined exclusion of it 
from the history of Josephus ? Had its mi- 
racles been false, this Jewish historian 
would gladly have exposed them. But its 
miracles were true, and silence was the only 
refuge of an antagonist, and his wisest 
policy. 

But though we gather no direct testimo- 
ny from Josephus, yet his history furnishes 
us with many satisfying additions to the 
Christian argument. In the details of policy 
and manners, he coincides in the main with 
the writers of the New Testament; and 
these coincidences are so numerous, and 
have so undesigned an appearance, as to 



impress on every person, who is at the trou- 
ble of making the comparison, the truth of 
the evangelical story. 

If we are to look for direct testimonies to 
the miracles of the New Testament, we 
must look to that quarter, where alone it 
would be reasonable to expect them, — to 
the writings of the Christian fathers, men 
who were not Jews or heathens at the mo- 
ment of recording their testimony ; but who 
had been Jews or heathens, and who, in 
their transition to the ultimate state of 
Christians, give a stronger evidence of in- 
tegrity, than if they had believed these mi- 
racles, and persisted in a cowardly adhe- 
rence to the safest profession. 

We do not undertake to satisfy every 
demand of the infidel. We think we do 
enough, if we prove that the thing demand- 
ed is most unlikely, even though the mira- 
cles should be true ; and therefore that the 
want of it carries no argument against the 
truth of the miracles. But we do still more 
than this, if we prove that the testimonies 
which we actually possess are much strong- 
er than the testimonies he is in quest of. 
And who can doubt this, when he reflects, 
that the true way of putting the case be- 
tween the testimony of the Christian father, 
which we do have, and the testimony of 
Tacitus, which we do not have, is that the 
latter would be an assertion not followed 
up by that conduct, which would have been 
the best evidence of its sincerity ; whereas 
the former is an assertion substantiated by 
the whole life, and by the decisive fact of 
the old profession having been renounced, 
and the new profession entered into, — a 
change where disgrace, and danger, and 
martyrdom were the consequences ? 

Let us, therefore, enter into an examina- 
tion of these testimonies. 

This subject has been in part anticipated, 
when we treated of the authenticity of the 
books of the New Testament. We have 
quotations and references to those books 
from five apostolic fathers, the companions 
of the original writers. We have their tes- 
timonies sustained and extended by their 
immediate successors; and as we pursued 
the crowded series of testimonies down- 
wards, they become so numerous, and so 
explicit, as to leave no doubt on the mind 
of the inquirers, that the different books of 
the New Testament are the publications of 
the authors whose names they bear ; and 
were received by the Christian world, as 
books of authority, from the first period of 
their appearance. 

Now, every sentence in a Christian father, 
expressive of respect for a book in the New 
Testament, is also expressive of his faith in 
its contents. It is equivalent to his testimony 
for the miracles recorded in it. In the lan- 
guage of the law, it is an act by which he ho- 
mologates the record, and superinduces his 



TESTIMONY OF SUBSEQUENT WITNESSES. 



own testimony to that of the original wri- 
ters. It would be vain to attempt speaking 
of all these testimonies. It cost the assidu- 
ous Lardner many years to collect them. 
They are exhibited in his Credibility of the 
New Testament ; and in the multitude of 
them, we see a power and a variety of evi- 
dence for the Christian miracles, which is 
quite unequalled in the whole compass of 
ancient history. 

But, in addition to these testimonies in 
the gross, for the truth of the evangelical 
history, have we no distinct testimonies to 
the individual facts which compose it 1 We 
have no doubt of the fact, that Barnabas 
was acquainted with the Gospel by Mat- 
thew, and that he subscribed to all the in- 
formation contained in that history. This 
is a most valuable testimony from a con- 
temporary writer ; and a testimony which 
embraces all the miracles narrated by the 
evangelist. But, in addition to this, we 
should like if Barnabas, upon his own per- 
sonal conviction, could assert the reality of 
any of these miracles. It would be multi- 
plying the original testimonies ; for he was 
a companion and a fellow-labourer of the 
apostles. We should have been delighted, 
if, in the course of our researches into the 
literature of past times, we had met with 
an authentic record, written by one of the 
five hundred, that are said to have seen our 
Saviour after his resurrection, and adding 
his own narrative of this event to the nar- 
ratives that have already come down to us. 
Now, is any thing of this kind to be met 
with in ecclesiastical antiquity ? How much 
of this kind of evidence are we in ac- 
tual possession of? and if we have not 
enough to satisfy our keen appetite for evi- 
dence on a question of such magnitude, 
how is the want of it to be accounted for ? 

Let it be observed, then, that of the twen- 
ty-seven books which make up the New 
Testament, five are narrative or historical, 
viz. the four Gospels, and the Acts of the 
Apostles, which relate to the life and mira- 
cles of our Saviour, and the progress of 
his religion through the world, for a good 
many years after his ascension into heaven. 
All the rest, with the exception of the Re- 
velation of St. John, are doctrinal or ad- 
monitory ; and their main object is to ex- 
plain the principles of the new religion, or 
to impress its duties upon the numerous 
proselytes who had even at that early pe- 
riod been gained over to the profession of 
Christianity. 

Besides what we have in the New Testa- 
ment, no other professed narrative of the 
miracles of Christianity has come down to 
us, bearing the marks of an authentic compo- 
sition by any apostle, or any contemporary 
of the apostles. Now, to those, who regret 
this circumstance, we beg leave to submit 
the following observations. Suppose that | 



one other narrative of the life and miracles 
of our Saviour had been composed, and, to 
give all the value to this additional testi- 
mony of which it is susceptible, let us sup- 
pose it to be the work of an apostle. By 
this last circumstance, we secure to its ut- 
termost extent the advantage of an original 
testimony, the testimony of another eye- 
witness, and constant companion of our 
Saviour. Now, we ask, what would have 
been the fate of this performance ? It would 
have been incorporated into the New Tes- 
tament along with the other gospels. It 
may have been the Gospel according to 
Philip. It may have been the Gospel ac- 
cording to Bartholomew. At all events, 
the whole amount of the advantage would 
have been the substitution of five Gospels 
instead of four, and this addition, the want 
of which is so much complained of, would 
scarcely have been felt by the Christian, or 
acknowledged by the infidel, to strengthen 
the evidence of which we are already in 
possession. 

But to vary the supposition, let us sup- 
pose that the narrative wanted, instead of 
being the work of an apostle, had been the 
work of some other contemporary, who 
writes upon his own original knowledge of 
the subject, but was not so closely associa- 
ted with Christ, or his immediate disciples, 
as to have his history admitted into the 
canonical scriptures. Had this history been 
preserved, it would have been transmitted 
to us in a separate state; it would have 
stood out from among that collection of 
writings, which passes under the general 
name of the New Testament, and the addi- 
tional evidence thus afforded, would have 
come down in the form most satisfactory to 
those with whom we are maintaining our 
present argument. Yet though, in point of 
form, the testimony ^might be more satis- 
factory ; in point of fact it would be less so. 
It is the testimony of a less competent wit- 
ness, — a witness who, in the judgment of 
his contemporaries, wanted those accom- 
plishments which entitled him to a place 
in the New Testament. There must be 
some delusion operating upon the under- 
standing, if we think that a circumstance, 
which renders an historian less accredited 
in the eyes of his own age, should render 
him more accredited in the eyes of posteri- 
ty. Had Mark been kept out of the New 
Testament, he would have come down to 
us in that form, which would have made 
his testimony more impressive to a super- 
ficial inquirer ; yet there would be no good 
reason for keeping him out, but precisely 
that reason which should render his testi- 
mony less impressive. We do not com- 
plain of this anxiety for more evidence, and 
as much of it as possible ; but it is right to 
be told, that the evidence we have is of far 
more value than the evidence demanded, 



TESTIMONY OF SUBSEQUENT WITNESSES. 



S3 



and that, in the concurrence of four canoni- 
cal narratives, we see a far more effectual 
argument for the miracles of the New Tes- 
tament, than in any number of those sepa- 
rate and extraneous narratives, the want of 
which is so much felt, and so much com- 
plained of. 

That the New Testament is not one, but 
a collection of many testimonies, is what 
has been often said, and often acquiesced 
in. Yet even after the argument is for- 
mally acceded to, its impression is unfelt ; 
and on this subject there is a great and an 
obstinate delusion, which not only confirms 
the infidel in his disregard to Christianity, 
but even veils the strength of the evidence 
from its warmest admirers. 

There is a difference between a mere 
narrative and a work of speculation or mo- 
rality. The latter subjects embrace a wider 
range, admit a greater variety of illustra- 
tion, and are quite endless in their applica- 
tion to the new cases that occur in the 
everchanging history of human affairs. The 
subject of a narrative again admits of being 
exhausted. It is limited by the number of 
actual events. True, you may expatiate 
upon the character or importance of these 
events, but, in so doing, you drop the office 
of a pure historian, for that of the politi- 
cian, or the moralist, or the divine. The 
evangelists give us a very chaste and per- 
fect example of the pure narrative. They 
never appear hi their own persons, or ar- 
rest the progress of the history for a single 
moment, by interposing their own wisdom, 
or their own piety. A gospel is a bare re- 
lation of what has been said or done ; and 
it is evident that, after a few good compo- 
sitions of this kind, any future attempts 
would be superfluous and uncalled for. 

But, in point of fact, these attempts were 
made. It is to be supposed, that, after the 
singular events of our Saviour's history, 
the curiosity of the public would be awa- 
kened and there would be a demand for 
written accounts of such wonderful trans- 
actions. These written accounts were ac- 
cordingly brought forward. Even in the 
interval of time between the ascension of 
our Saviour, and the publication of the 
earliest Gospel, such written histories seem 
to have been frequent. " Many," says St. 
Luke, (and in this he is supported by the 
testimony of subsequent writers,) "have 
taken in hand to set forth in order a decla- 
ration of these things." Now what has been 
the fate of all these performances ? Such 
as might have been anticipated. They fell 
into disuse and oblivion. There is no evil 
design ascribed to the authors of them. 
They may have been written with perfect 
integrity, and been useful for a short time, 
and within a limited circle; but, as was 
natural, they all gave way to the superior 
authority, and more complete information. 



of our present narratives. The demand of 
the christian world was withdrawn from the 
less esteemed, to the more esteemed histo- 
ries of our Saviour. The former ceased to 
be read, and copies of them would be no 
longer transcribed or multiplied. We can- 
not find the testimony we are in quest of, 
not because it was never given, but because 
the early Christians, who were the most 
competent judges of that testimony, did 
not think it worthy of being transmitted 
to us. 

But, though the number of narratives be 
necessarily limited by the nature of the sub- 
ject, there is no such limitation upon works 
of a moral, didactic, or explanatory kind. 
Many such pieces have come down to us, 
both from the apostles themselves, and from 
the earlier fathers of the church. Now, 
though the object of these compositions is 
not to deliver any narrative of the Chris- 
tian miracles, they may perhaps give us 
some occasional intimation of them. They 
may proceed upon their reality. We may 
gather either from incidental passages, or 
from the general scope of the performance, 
that the miracles of Christ and his apostles 
were recognised, and the divinity of our 
religion acknowledged, as founded upon 
these miracles. 

The first piece of the kind with which 
we meet besides the writings of the New 
Testament, is an epistle ascribed to Barna- 
bas, and, at all events, the production of a 
man who lived in the days of the apostles. 
It consists of an exhortation to constancy 
in the Christian profession, a dissuasive 
from Judaism, and other moral instructions. 
We shall only give a quotation of a single 
clause from this work. "And he (i. e. our 
Saviour) making great signs and prodigies 
to the people of the Jews, they neither be- 
lieved nor loved him." 

The next piece in the succession of Chris- 
tian writers, is the undoubted epistle of 
Clement, the bishop of Rome, to the church 
of Corinth, and who, by the concurrent 
voice of all antiquity, is the same Clement 
who is mentioned in the epistle to the Phi- 
lippians, as the fellow-labourer of Paul. It 
is written in the name of the church of 
Rome, and the object of it is to compose 
certain dissensions which had arisen in the 
church of Corinth. It was out of his way 
to enter into any thing like a formal narra- 
tive of the miraculous facts which are to 
be found in the evangelical history. The 
subject of his epistle did not lead him to 
this ; and besides the number and authority 
of the narratives already published, render- 
ed an attempt of this kind altogether super- 
fluous. Still, however, though a miracle 
may not be formally announced, it may be 
brought in incidentally, or it may be pro- 
ceeded upon, or assumed as the basis of an 
argument. We give one or two examples 



40 



TESTIMONY OF SUBSEQUENT WITNESSES. 



[CHAP. 



of this. In one part of his epistle, he illus- 
trates the doctrine of our resurrection from 
the dead, by the change and progression of 
natural appearances, and he ushers in this 
illustration with the following sentence: 
"Let us consider, my beloved, how the 
Lord shows us our future resurrection per- 
petually, of which he made the Lord Jesus 
Christ the first fruits, by raising him from 
the dead." This incidental way of bring- 
ing in the fact of our Lord's resurrection, 
appears to us the strongest possible form 
in which the testimony of Clement could 
have come down to us. It is brought for- 
ward in the most confident and unembar- 
rassed manner. He does not stop to con- 
firm this fact by any strong asseveration, nor 
does he carry, in his manner of announcing 
it, the most remote suspicion of its being 
resisted by the incredulity of those to whom 
he is addressing himself. It wears the air 
of an acknowledged truth, a thing under- 
stood and acquiesced in by all parties in this 
correspondence. The direct narrative of 
the evangelists give us their original testi- 
mony to the miracles of the Gospel. The 
artless and indirect allusions of the apos- 
tolic fathers, give us not merely their faith 
in this testimony, but the faith of the whole 
societies to which they write. They let us 
see, not merely that such a testimony was 
given, but that such a testimony was gene- 
rally believed, and that too at a time when 
the facts in question lay within the memory 
of living witnesses. 

In another part, speaking of the apostles, 
Clement says, that "receiving the com- 
mandments, and being filled with full cer- 
tainty by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 
and confirmed by the word of God, with 
the assurance of the Holy Spirit, they went 
out announcing the advent of the kingdom 
of God." 

It was no object in those days for a Chris- 
tian writer to come over the miracles of 
the New Testament, with the view of lend- 
ing his formal and explicit testimony to 
them. This testimony had already been 
completed to the satisfaction of the whole 
Christian world. If much additional testi- 
mony has not been given, it is because it 
was not called for. But we ought to see, 
that every Christian writer, in the fact of 
his being a Christian, in his expressed rev- 
erence for the books of the New Testa- 
ment, and in his numerous allusions to 
the leading points of the Gospel history, 
has given as satisfying evidence to the 
truth of the Christian miracles, as if he 
had left behind him a copious and distinct 
narrative. 

Of all the miracles of the Gospel, it was 
to be supposed, that the resurrection of our 
Saviour would be oftenest appealed to ; 
not as an evidence of his being a teacher, — 
for that was a point so settled in the mind I 



of every Christian, that a written exposi- 
tion of the argument was no longer neces- 
sary, — but as a motive to constancy in the 
Christian profession, and as the great pillar 
of hope in our own immortality. We ac- 
cordingly meet with the most free and con- 
fident allusions to this fact in the early 
fathers. We meet with five intimations' 
of this fact in the undoubted epistle of 
Polycarp to the Philippians : a father 
who had been educated by the apostles, 
and conversed with many who had seen 
Christ. 

It is quite unnecessary to exhibit passa- 
ges from the epistles of Ignatius to the 
same effect, or to pursue the examination 
downwards through the series of written 
testimonies. It is enough to announce it 
as a general fact, that, in the very first age 
of the Christian church, the teachers of 
this religion proceeded as confidently upon 
the reality of Christ's miracles and resur- 
rection in their addresses to the people, as 
the teachers of the present day : Or, in other 
words, that they were as little afraid of be- 
ing resisted by the incredulity of the peo- 
ple, at a time when the evidence of the 
facts was accessible to all, and habit and 
prejudice were against them, as we are of 
being resisted by the incredulity of an un- 
lettered multitude, who listen to us with all 
the veneration of a hereditary faith. 

There are five apostolic fathers, and a 
series of Christian writers who follow after 
them in rapid succession. To give an idea 
to those who are not conversant in the study 
of ecclesiastical antiquities, how well sus- 
tained the chain of testimony is from the 
first age of Christianity, we shall give a 
passage from a letter of Irenaeus, preserved 
by Eusebius. We have no less than nine 
compositions from different authors, which 
fill up the interval between him and Poly- 
carp ; and yet this is the way in which he 
speaks, in his old age, of the venerable Po- 
lycarp, in a letter to Florinus. " I saw you, 
when I was very young, in the Lower Asia 
with Polycarp. For I better remember 
the affairs of that time than those which 
have lately happened ; the things which we 
learn in our childhood growing up in the 
soul, and uniting themselves to it. Inso- 
much, that I can tell the place in which 
the blessed Polycarp sat and taught, and 
his going out, and coming in, and the man- 
ner of his life, and the form of his person, 
and his discourses to the people ; and how 
he related his conversation with John, and . 
others who had seen the Lord ; and how he 
related their sayings, and what he had 
heard from them concerning the Lord, both ; 
concerning his miracles and his doctrines, 
as he had received them from the eye-wit- 
nesses of the Word of Life : all which Po- 
lycarp related agreeably to the Scriptures. 
These things I then, through the mercy of 



TESTIMONY OF SUBSEQUENT WITNESSES. 



II 



God towards me, diligently heard and at- 
tended to, recording them not on paper, 
but upon my heart." 

Now is the time to exhibit to full advan- 
tage the argument which the different epis- 
tles of the New Testament afford. They 
are, in fact, so many distinct and additional 
testimonies. If the testimonies drawn from 
the writings of the Christian fathers are 
calculated to make any impression, then 
the testimonies of these epistles, where 
there is no delusion, and no prejudice in 
the mind of the inquirer, must make a 
greater impression. They are more ancient, 
and were held to be of greater authority 
by competent judges. They were held suf- 
ficient by the men of those days who were 
nearer to the sources of evidence ; and they 
ought, therefore, to be held sufficient by us. 
The early persecuted Christians had too 
great an interest in the grounds of their 
faith, to make a light and superficial exa- 
mination. We may safely commit the de- 
cision to them ; and the decision they have 
made, is, that the authors of the different 
epistles in the New Testament, Avere 
worthier of their confidence, as witnesses 
of the truth, than the authors of those com- 
positions which were left out of the collec- 
tion, and maintain, in our eye, the form of 
a separate testimony. By what unaccount- 
able tendency is it, that we feel disposed to 
reverse this decision, and to repose more 
faith in the testimony of subsequent and 
less esteemed writers 1 Is there any thing 
in the confidence given to Peter and Paul 
by their contemporaries, which renders 
them unworthy of ours ? or, is the testimo- 
ny of their writings less valuable and less 
impressive, because the Christians of old 
have received them as the best vouchers of 
their faith 1 

It gives us a far more satisfying impres- 
sion than ever of the truth of our religion, 
when, in addition to several distinct and in- 
dependent narratives of its history, we meet 
with a number of contemporaneous produc- 
tions addressed to different societies, and all 
proceeding upon the truth of that history, as 
an agreed and unquestionable point among 
the different parties in the correspondence. 
Had that history been a fabrication, in what 
manner, we ask, would it have been fol- 
lowed up by the subsequent compositions 
of those numerous agents in the work of 
deception? How comes it, that they have 
betrayed no symptom of that insecurity 
which it would have been so natural to feel 
in their circumstances? Through the whole 
of these epistles, we see nothing like the 
awkward or embarrassed air of impostors. 
We see no anxiety, either to mend or to 
confirm the history that had already been 
given. We see no contest which they might 
have been called upon to maintain with the 
incredulity of their converts, as to the mira- 



cles of the Gospel. We see the most in- 
trepid remonstrance against errors of con- 
duct, or discipline, or doctrine. This savours 
strongly of upright and independent teach- 
ers; but is it not a most striking circum- 
stance, that among the severe reckonings 
which. St. Paul had with some of his 
churches, he was never once called upon 
to school their doubts, or their suspicions, 
as to the reality of the Christian miracles? 
This is a point universally acquiesced in; 
and, from the general strain of these epis- 
tles, we collect, not merely the testimony 
of their authors, but the unsuspected testi- 
mony of all to whom they addressed them- 
selves. 

And let it never be forgotten, that the 
Christians, who compose these churches, 
were in every way well qualified to be ar- 
biters in this question. They had the first 
authorities within their reach. The five 
hundred who, Paul says to them, had seen 
our Saviour after his resurrection, could be 
sought after; and, if not to be found, Paul 
would have had his assertion to answer for. 
In some cases, they were the first authori- 
ties themselves, and had therefore no con- 
firmation to go in search of. He appeals 
to the miracles which had been wrought 
among them, and in this way he commits 
the question to their own experience. He 
asserts this to the Galatians; and at the 
very time, too, that he is delivering against 
them a most severe and irritating invective. 
He intimates the same thing repeatedly to 
the Corinthians ; and after he had put his 
honesty to so severe a trial, does he betray 
any insecurity as to his character and re- 
putation among them? So far from this, 
that in arguing the general doctrine of the 
resurrection from the dead, as the most ef- 
fectual method of securing assent to it, he 
rests the main part of the argument upon 
their confidence in his fidelity as a witness. 
"But if there be no resurrection from the 
dead, then is Christ not risen. — Yea, and 
we are found false witnesses of God, be- 
cause we have testified of God, that he 
raised up Christ, whom he raised not up, if 
so be that the dead rise not." Where, we 
ask, would have been the mighty charm of 
this argument, if Paul's fidelity had been 
questioned ; and how shall we account for 
the free and intrepid manner in which he 
advances it, if the miracles which he refers 
to, as wrought among them, had been nul- 
lities of his own invention? 

For the truth of the Gospel history, we 
can appeal to one strong and unbroken 
series of testimonies from the day of the 
apostles. But the great strength of the evi- 
dence lies in that effulgence of testimony, 
which enlightens this history at its com- 
mencement— in the number of its original 
witnesses— in the distinct and independent 
records which they left behind them, and 



42 REMARKS ON THE ARGUMENT FROM TROPHECY. 



in the undoubted faith they bore among the 
numerous societies which they instituted. 
The concurrence of the apostolic fathers, 
and their immediate successors, forms a 
very strong and a very satisfying argu- 
ment ; but let it be further remembered, that 



[chap. 

out of the materials which compose, if we 
may be allowed the expression, the original 
charter of our faith, we can select a stronger 
body of evidence than it is possible to form 
out of the whole mass of subsequent testi- 
monies. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Remarks on the Argument from Prophecy. 



VI. Prophecy is another species of evi- 
dence to which Christianity professes an 
abundant claim, and which can be estab- 
lished on evidence altogether distinct from 
the testimony of its supporters. The pre- 
diction of what is future may not be de- 
livered in terms so clear and intelligible as 
the history of what is past ; and yet, in its 
actual fulfilment, it may leave no doubt on 
the mind of the inquirer that it was a predic- 
tion, and that the event in question was in 
the contemplation of him who uttered it. 
It may be easy to dispose of one isolated 
prophecy, by ascribing it to accident; but 
when we observe a number of these pro- 
phecies, delivered in different ages, and all 
bearing an application to the same events, 
or the same individual, it is difficult to resist 
the impression that they were actuated by 
a knowledge superior to human. 

The obscurity of the prophetical lan- 
guage has been often complained of; but it 
is not so often attended to, that if the pro- 
phecy which foretels an event were as clear 
as the narrative which describes it, it would 
in many cases annihilate the argument. 
Were the history of any individual foretold 
in terms as explicit as it is in the poWer of 
narrative to make them, it might be com- 
petent for any usurper to set himself for- 
ward, and in as far as it depended upon his 
own agency, he might realize that history. 
He has no more to do than to take his lesson 
from the prophecy before him ; but could 
it be said that fulfilment like this carried 
in it the evidence of any thing divine or 
miraculous? If the prophecy of a Prince 
and a Saviour, in the Old Testament, were 
different from what they are, and delivered 
in the precise and intelligible terms of an ac- 
tual history; then every accomplishment 
which could be brought about by the agency 
of those who understood the prophecy, and 
were anxious for its verification, is lost to 
the argument. It would be instantly said 
that the agents in the transaction took their 
clue from the prophecy before them. It is 
the way, in fact, in which infidels have at- 
tempted to evade the argument as it actually 
stands. In the New Testament, an event is 
sometimes said to happen, that it might be 



fulfilled what was spoken by some of the 
old prophets. If every event which enters 
into the Gospel had been under the con- 
troul of agents merely human, and friends 
to Christianity, then we might have had 
reason to pronounce the whole history to 
be one continued process of artful and de- 
signed accommodation to the Old Testa- 
ment prophecies. But the truth is, that 
many of the events pointed at in the Old 
Testament, so far from being brought about 
by the agency of Christians, were brought 
about in opposition to their most anxious 
wishes. Some of them were brought about 
by the agency of their most decided ene- 
mies ; and some of them, such as the disso- 
lution of the Jewish state, and the dispersion 
of its people among all countries, were quite 
beyond the controul of the apostles and 
their followers, and were effected by the in- 
tervention of a neutral party, which at the 
time took no interest in the question, and 
which was a stranger to the prophecy, 
though the unconscious instrument of its 
fulfilment. 

Lord Bolingbroke has carried the objec- 
tion so far, that he asserts Jesus Christ to 
have brought about his own death, by a 
series of wilful and preconcerted measures, 
merely to give the disciples who came after 
him the triumph of an appeal to the old 
prophecies. This is ridiculous enough; but 
it serves to show with what facility an in- 
fidel might have evaded the whole argu- 
ment, had these prophecies been free of all 
that obscurity which is now so loudly com- 
plained of. 

The best form, for the purposes of argu- 
ment, in which a prophecy can be delivered, 
is to be so obscure, as to leave the event, or 
rather its main circumstances, unintelligible 
before the fulfilment, and so clear as to be 
intelligible after it. It is easy to conceive 
that this may be an attainable object; and 
it is saying much for the argument as it 
stands, that the happiest illustrations of this 
clearness on the one hand, and this obscurity 
on the other, are to be gathered from the 
actual prophecies of the Old Testament. 

It is not, however, by this part of the ar- 
gument, that we expect to reclaim the 



VI.] 



ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 



43 



enemy of our religion from his infidelity ; 
not that the examination would not satisfy 
him, but that the examination will not be 
given. What a violence it would be of- 
fering to all his antipathies, were we to 
land him, at the outset of our discussions, 
among the chapters of Daniel or Isaiah ! 
He has too inveterate a contempt for the 
Bible. He nauseates the whole subject too 
strongly to be prevailed upon to accom- 
pany us to such an exercise. On such a 
subject as this, there is no contract, no ap- 
proximation between us; and we therefore 
leave him with the assertion, (an assertion 
which he has no title to pronomice upon, 
till after he has finished the very examina- 
tion in which we are most anxious to en- 
gage him,) that in the numerous prophe- 
cies of the Old Testament, there is such a 
multitude of allusions to the events of the 
New, as will give a strong impression to 
the mind of every inquirer, that the whole 
forms one magnificent series of communi- 
cations between the visible and the invisible 
world ; a great plan over which the unseen 
God presides in wisdom, and which, be- 
ginning with the first ages of the world, is 
still receiving new developements from 
every great step in the history of the spe- 
cies. * 

It is impossible to give a complete expo- 
sition of this argument without an actual 
reference to the prophecies themselves ; 
and this we at present abstain from. But 
it can be conceived, that a prophecy, when 
first announced, may be so obscure, as to 
be unintelligible in many of its circum- 
stances ; and yet may so far explain itself 
by its accomplishment, as to carry along 
with it the most decisive evidence of its be- 
ing a prophecy. And the argument may 
be so far strengthened by the number, and 
distance, and independence, of the different 
prophecies, all bearing an application to 
the same individual and the same history, 
as to leave no doubt on the mind of the 
observer, that the events in question were 
in the actual contemplation of those who 
uttered the prediction. If the terms of the 
prophecy were not comprehended, it at 
least takes off" the suspicion of the event 
being brought about by the controul or 
agency of men who were interested in the 
accomplishment. If the prophecies of the 
Old Testament are just invested in such a 
degre^)f obscurity, as is enough to dis- 
guiseTnany of the leading circumstances 
from those who lived before the fulfilment, 
— while they derive from the event an ex- 
planation satisfying to all who live after it, 
then, we say, the argument for the divinity 
of the whole is stronger, than if no such 
obscurity had existed. In the history of 
the New Testament, we see a natural and 
consistent account of the delusion respect- 
ing the Messiah, in which this obscurity 



has left the Jewish people; of the strong 
prejudices, even of the first disciples ; of 
the maimer in which these prejudices 
were dissipated, only by the accomplish- 
ment ; and of their final conviction in the 
import of these prophecies being at last so 
strong, that it often forms their main ar- 
gument for the divinity of that new reli- 
gion which they were commissioned to 
publish to the world. Now, assuming, 
what we still persist in asserting, and ask 
to be tried upon, that an actual comparison 
of the prophecies in the Old Testament, 
with their alleged fulfilment in the New, 
will leave a conviction behind it, that there 
is a real correspondence between them ; 
we see, in the great events of the new dis- 
pensation brought about by the blind in- 
strumentality of prejudice and opposition, 
far more unambiguous characters of the 
finger of God, than if every thing had hap- 
pened with the full concurrence and an- 
ticipation of the different actors in this his- 
tory. 

There is another essential part of the 
argument, which is much strengthened by 
this obscurity. It is necessary to fix the 
date of the prophecies, or to establish, at 
least, that the time of their publication was 
antecedent to the events to which they refer. 
Now, had these prophecies been delivered 
in terms so explicit, as to force the concur- 
rence of the whole Jewish nation, the ar- 
gument for their antiquity, would not have 
come down in a form as satisfying, as that 
in which it is actually exhibited. The 
testimony of the Jew r s, to the date of their 
sacred writings, would have been refused 
as an interested testimony. Whereas, to 
evade the argument as it stands, we must 
admit a principle, which, in no question of 
Ordinary criticism, would be suffered for a 
single moment to influence your under- 
standing. We must conceive, that two 
parties, at the very time that they were in- 
fluenced by the strongest mutual hostility, 
combined to support a fabrication; that 
they have not violated this combination; 
that the numerous writers on both sides of 
the question have not suffered the slightest 
hint of this mysterious compact to escape 
them; and that, though the Jews are galled 
incessantly by the triumphant tone of the 
Christian appeals to their own prophecies, 
they have never been tempted to let out a 
secret, which would have brought the ar- 
gument of the Christians into disgrace, and 
shown the world how falsehood and for- 
gery mingled with their pretensions. 

In the rivalry which, from the very 
commencement of our religion, has always 
obtained between Jews and Christians, in 
the mutual animosities of Christian sects, 
in the vast multiplication of copies of the 
Scriptures, in the distant and independent 
societies which were scattered over so 



44 



ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 



[chap. 



many countries, we see the most satisfying 
pledge, both for the integrity of the sacred 
writings, and for the date which all par- 
ties agree in ascribing to them. We hear 
of the many securities which have been 
provided in the various forms of registra- 
tions, and duplicates, and depositories ; but 
neither the wisdom, nor the interest of 
men ever provided more effectual checks 
against forgery and corruption, than we 
have in the instance before us. And the 
argument, in particular, for the antecedence 
of the prophecies to the events in the New 
Testament, is so well established by the 
concurrence of the two rival parties, that 
we do not see, how it is in the power of 
additional testimony to strengthen it. 

But neither is it true, that the prophe- 
cies are delivered in terms so obscure, as 
to require a painful examination, before 
we can obtain a full perception of the ar- 
gument. Those prophecies which relate 
to the fate of particular cities, such as Ni- 
neveh, and Tyre, and Babylon; those 
which relate to the issue of particular 
wars, in which the kings of Israel and Ju- 
dah were engaged; and some of those 
which relate to the future history of the 
adjoining countries, are not so much veiled 
by symbolical language, as to elude the 
understanding, even of the most negligent 
observers. It is true, that in these instan- 
ces, both the- prophecy and the fulfilment 
appear to us in the light of a distant an- 
tiquity. They have accomplished their 
end. They kept alive the faith and worship 
of successive generations. They multi- 
plied the evidences of the true religion, 
and account for a phenomenon in ancient 
history that is otherwise inexplicable, the 
existence and preservation of one solitary 
monument of pure theism in the midst of 
a corrupt and idolatrous world. 

But to descend a little farther. "We 
gather from the state of opinions at the 
time of our Saviour so many testimonies 
to the clearness of the old prophecies. The 
time and the place of our Saviour's appear- 
ance in the world, and the triumphant pro- 
gress, if not the nature of his kingdom, 
were perfectly understood by the priests 
and chief men of Judea. We have it 
from the testimony of profane authors, 
that there was, at that time, a general ex- 
pectation of a prince and a prophet all 
over the East. The destruction of Jerusa- 
lem was another example of the fulfilment 
of a clear prophecy; and this, added to 
other predictions uttered by our Saviour, 
and which received their accomplishment 
in the first generation of the Christian 
church, would have its use in sustaining 
the faith of the disciples amidst the per- 
plexities of that anxious and distressing 
period. 

We can even come down to the present 



day, and point to the accomplishment of 
clear prophecies in the actual history of 
the world. The present state of Egypt, 
and the present state of the Jews, are the 
examples which we fix upon. The one is 
an actual fulfilment of a clear prophecy; 
the other is also an actual fulfilment, and 
forms in itself the likeliest preparation for 
another accomplishment that is }^et to 
come. Nor do we conceive, that these 
clear and literal fulfilments exhaust the 
whole of the argument from prophecy. 
They only form one part of the argument, 
but a part so obvious and irresistible, as 
should invite every lover of truth to the 
examination of the remainder. They 
should secure such a degree of respect for 
the subject, as to engage the attention, and 
awaken even in the mind of the most rapid 
and superficial observer, a suspicion that 
there may be something in it. They 
should soften that contempt which repels 
so many from investigating the argument 
at all; or at all events, they render that 
contempt inexcusable. 

The whole history of the Jews is calcu- 
lated to allure the curiosity, and had it not 
been leagued with the defence and illus- 
tration of our faith, would have drawn the 
attention of many a philospher, as the 
most singular exhibition of human nature 
that ever was recorded in the annals of the 
world. The most satisfying cause of this 
phenomenon is to be looked for in the 
history which describes its origin and pro- 
gress; and by denying the truth of that 
history, you abandon the only explanation 
which can be given of this wonderful peo- 
ple. It is quite in vain to talk of the im- 
mutability of Eastern habits, as exemplified 
in the nations of Asia. What other people 
ever survived the same annihilating pro- 
cesses? We do not talk of conquest, 
where the whole amount of the effect is in 
general a change of dynasty or of govern- 
ment; but where the language, the habits, 
the denomination, and above all, the geo- 
graphical position, still remain to keep up 
the identity of the people. But in the 
history of the Jews, we see a strong in- 
destructible principle, which maintained 
them in a separate form of existence amid 
changes that no other nation ever survived. 
We confine ourselves to the overthrow of 
their nation in the first century of our 
epoch, and appeal to the disintereged tes- 
timonies of Tacitus and Josephus^l ever 
the cruelty of war devised a process of 
more terrible energy for the utter extirpa- 
tion of a name, and a remembrance from 
the world. They have been dispersed 
among all countries. They have no com- 
mon tie of locality or government to keep 
them together. All the ordinary princi- 
ples of assimilation, which make law, and 
religion, and manners, so much a matter 



VII.] 



REMARKS ON THE SCEPTICISM OF GEOLOGISTS. 



45 



of geography, are in their instance sus- 
pended. Even the smallest particles of this 
broken mass have resisted an affinity of al- 
most universal operation, and remain un- 
oiluted by the strong and overwhelming 
admixture of foreign ingredients. And in 
exception to every thing which history has 
recorded of the revolutions of the species, 
we see in this wonderful race a vigorous 
principle of identity, which has remain- 
ed in undiminished force for nearly two 
thousand years, and still pervades every 
shred and fragment of their widely scat- 
tered population. Now if the infidel insists 
upon it, we shall not rest on this as an ar- 
gument. We can afford to give it up : for 
in the abundance of our resources, we feel 
independent of it. We shall say that it is 
enough, if it can reclaim him from his 
levity, and compel his attention to the other 
evidences which we have to offer him. 

All we ask of him is to allow, that the 
undeniable singularity which is before his 
eyes, gives him a sanction at least, to ex- 
amine the other singularities to which we 
make pretensions. If he goes back to the 
past history of the Jews, he will see in their 
wars the same unexampled preservation of 
their name and their nation. He will see 
them surviving the process of an actual 
transportation into another country. In 
short, he will see them to be unlike all other 
people in what observation offers, and au- 
thentic history records of them; and the 
only concession that we demand of him 
from all this, is, that their pretensions to be 
unlike other people in their extraordinary 
revelations from heaven, is at least possible, 
and deserves to be inquired into. 

It may not be out of place to expose a 
species of injustice, which has often been 
done to the Christian argument. The de- 
fence of Christianity consists of several dis- 
tinct arguments, which have sometimes been 
multiplied beyond what is necessary, and 
even sometimes beyond what is tenable. In 
addition to the main evidence which lies in 
the testimony given to the miracles of the 
Gospel, there is the evidence of prophecy ; 
there is the evidence of collateral testimony ; 
there is the internal evidence. The argu- 
ment under each of these heads, is often 
made to undergo a farther subdivision; and 



it is not to be wondered at, that in the multi- 
tude of observations, the defence of Chris- 
tianity may often be made to rest upon 
ground, which, to say the least of it, is pre- 
carious or vulnerable. Now the injustice 
which we complain of is, that when the 
friends of our religion are dislodged from 
some feeble outwork, raised by an unskilful 
officer in the cause, its enemies raise the 
cry of a decisive victory. But, for our own 
part, we could see her driven from all her 
defences, and surrender them without a 
sigh, so long as the phalanx of her historical 
evidence remains impenetrable. Behind 
this unsealed barrier, we could entrench 
ourselves, and eye the light skirmishing be- 
fore us with no other sentiment than of 
regret, that our friends should, by the eager- 
ness of their misplaced zeal, have given our 
enemy the appearance of a triumph. We 
offer no opinion as to the two-fold interpre- 
tation of prophecy ; but though it were re- 
futed by argument, and disgraced by ridi- 
cule, all that portion of evidence which lies 
in the numerous examples of literal and 
unambiguous fulfilment remains unaffected 
by it. Many there are who deny the in- 
spiration of the Song of Solomon. But in 
what possible way does this affect the re- 
cords of the evangelical history? Just as 
much as it affects the lives of Plutarch, or 
the Annals of Tacitus. There are a thou- 
sand subjects on which infidels may idly 
push the triumph, and Christians be as idly 
galled by the severity, or even the truth of 
their observations. We point to the histori- 
cal evidence of the New Testament, and ask 
them to dispose of it. It is there, that we 
call them to the onset; for there lies the 
main strength of the Christian argument. 
It is true, that in the evidence of prophecy, 
we see. a rising barrier, which, in the pro- 
gress of centuries, may receive from time 
to time a new accumulation to the materials 
which form it. In this way, the evidence 
of prophecy may come, in time, to surpass 
the evidence of miracles. The restoration 
of the Jews will be the fulfilment of a clear 
prophecy, and form a proud and animating 
period in the history of our religion. " Now 
if the fall of them be the riches of the world, 
and the diminishing of them the riches of 
the Gentiles, how much more their fulness." 



CHAPTER VII. 

Remarks on the Scepticism of Geologists. 

VII. The late speculations in geology of the argument. They give a higher an 

form another example of a distant and un- tiquity to the world than most of those who 

connected circumstance, being suffered to read the Bible had any conception of. Admit 

cast an unmerited disgrace over the whole this antiquity, and in what possible way 



40 



SCEPTICISM OF GEOLOGISTS. 



[CHAP. 



does it touch upon the historical evidence 
of the New Testament? The credibility of 
the Gospel miracles stands upon its own 
appropriate foundation, the recorded testi- 
mony of numerous and unexceptionable 
witnesses. The only way in which we can 
overthrow that credibility is by attacking 
the testimony, or disproving the authenticity 
of the record. Every other science is tried 
upon its own peculiar evidence ; and all we 
contend for is, that the same justice be done 
to theology. When a mathematician offers 
to apply his reasoning to the phenomena of 
mind, the votaries of moral science resent 
it as an invasion, and make their appeal to 
the evidence of consciousness. When an 
amateur of botany, upon some vague analo- 
gies, offers his confident affirmations as to 
the structure and parts of the human body, 
there would be an instantaneous appeal to 
the knife and demonstrations of the anato- 
mist. Should a mineralogist, upon the ex- 
hibition of an ingenious or well-supported 
theory, pronounce upon the history of our 
Saviour and his miracles ; we would call it 
another example of an arbitrary and un- 
philosophical extension of principles be- 
yond the field of their legitimate applica- 
tion. We would appeal to the kind and the 
quantity of testimony upon which that his- 
tory is supported. W T e would suffer our- 
selves to be delighted by the brilliancy, or 
even convinced by the evidence of his specu- 
lations ; but we would feel that the history 
of those facts, which form the ground-work 
of our faith, is as little affected by them, as 
the history of any storm, or battle, or war- 
rior, which has come down to us in the most 
genuine and approved records of past ages. 

But whatever be the external evidence of 
testimony, or however strong may be its 
visible characters of truth and honesty, is 
not the falsehood or the contradiction which 
we may detect in the subject of that testi- 
mony sufficient to discredit it? Had we 
been original spectators of our Saviour's 
miracles, we must have had as strong a con- 
viction of their reality, as it is in the power of 
testimony to give us. Had we been the eye- 
witnesses of his character and history, and 
caught from actual observation the impres- 
sion of his worth, the internal proofs that 
no jugglery or falsehood could have been 
intended, would have been certainly as 
strong as the internal proofs which are now 
exhibited to us, and which consist in the 
simplicity of the narrative, and that tone of 
perfect honesty which pervades, in a man- 
ner so distinct and intelligible, every com- 
position of the apostles. Yet, with all these 
advantages, if Jesus Christ had asserted as 
a truth, what we confidently knew to be a 
falsehood; had he for example, upon the 
strength of his prophetical endowments, 
pronounced upon the secret of a person's 
age, and told us that he was thirty, when 



we knew him to be forty, would not this 
have made us stumble at all his pretensions, 
and, in spite of every other argument and 
appearance, would we not have withdrawn 
our confidence from him as a teacher from 
God? This we allow would have been a 
most serious dilemma. It would have been 
that state of neutrality which admits of 
nothing positive or satisfying on either side 
of the question ; or rather, what is still more 
distressing, which gives me the most posi- 
tive and satisfactory appearances on both 
sides. We could not abandon the truth of 
the miracles, because we saw them. Could 
we give them up, we shoidd determine on 
a positive rejection, and our minds would 
find repose in absolute infidelity. But as 
the case stands it is scepticism. There is 
nothing like it in any other department of 
inquiry. We can appeal to no actual ex- 
ample; but a student of natural science may 
be made to understand the puzzle, when 
we ask him, how he would act, if the ex- 
periment, which he conducts under the most 
perfect sameness of circumstances, were to 
land him in opposite results? He would 
vary and repeat his experiments. He would 
try to detect the inconsistency, and would 
rejoice, if he at last found that the difficulty 
lay in the errors of his own observation, 
and not in the inexplicable nature of the 
subject. All this he would do in anxious 
and repeated endeavours, before he inferred 
that nature persevered in no law, and that 
that constancy, which is the foundation of 
all science, was perpetually broke in upon 
by the most capricious and unlooked for 
appearances, before he would abandon him- 
self to scepticism, and pronounce philoso- 
phy to be an impossible attainment. 

It is our part to imitate this example. If 
Jesus Christ has, on the one hand, performed 
miracles, and sustained in the whole tenor 
of his history the character of a prophet, 
and, on the other hand', asserted to be true 
what we undeniably know to be a false- 
hood, this is a dilemma which we are called 
upon to resolve by every principle, that can 
urge the human mind in the pursuit of 
liberal inquiry. It is not enough to say, 
that the phenomena in question do net fall 
within the dominion of philosophy; and we 
therefore leave them as a fair exercise an 
amusement to commentators. The mathe- 
matician may say, and has said the same 
thing of the moralist, yet there are moralists 
in the world who will prosecute their specu- 
lations in spite of him; and what is more, 
there are men who take a wider survey 
than either, who rise above these profes- 
sional prejudices, and will allow that, in 
each department of inquiry, the subjects 
which offer are entitled to a candid and re- 
spectful consideration. The naturalist may 
pronounce the same rapid judgment upon 
the difficulties of the theologian; yet there 



SCEPTICISM OF GEOLOGISTS. 



47 



ever will be theologians who feel a peculiar 
interest in their subject; and we trust that 
there ever will be men, with a higher grasp 
of mind than either the mere theologian, or 
the mere naturalist, who are ready to ac- 
knowledge the claims of truth in ever}^ 
quarter, — who are superior to that narrow 
contempt, which has made such an unhappy 
and malignant separation among the differ- 
ent orders of scientific men, — who will ex- 
amine the evidences of the Gospel history, 
and, if they are found to be sufficient, will 
view the miracles of our Saviour with the 
same liberal and philosophic curiosity with 
which they woidd contemplate any grand 
phenomenon in the moral history of the 
species. If there really appears, on the face 
of this investigation, to be such a difficulty 
as the one in question, a philosopher of the 
order we are now describing will make 
many an anxious effort to extricate him- 
self; he will not soon acquiesce in a scep- 
ticism, of which there is no other example 
in the wide field of human speculation; he 
will either make out the insufficiency of 
the historical evidence, or prove that the 
falsehood ascribed to Jesus Christ has no 
existence. He will try to dispose of one of 
the terms of the alleged contradiction, be- 
fore he can prevail upon himself to admit 
both, and deliver his mind to a state of un- 
certainty most painful to those who respect 
truth in all her departments. 

We offer the above observations, not so 
much for the purpose of doing away a dif- 
ficulty which we conscientiously believe to 
have no existence, as for the purpose of 
exposing the rapid, careless, and unphiloso- 
phical procedure of some enemies to the 
Christian argument. They, in the first in- 
stance, take up the rapid assumption, that 
Jesus Christ has, either through himself, 
or his immediate disciples, made an asser- 
tion as to the antiquity of the globe, which, 
upon the faith of their geological specula- 
tions, they know to be a falsehood. After 
having fastened this strain upon the sub- 
ject of the testimony, they by one sum- 
mary act of the understanding, lay aside all 
the external evidence for the miracles and 
general character of our Saviour. They 
will not wait to be told, that this evidence 
is a distinct subject of examination ; and 
that, if actually attended to, it will be found 
much stronger than the evidence of any 
other fact or history which has come down 
to us in the written memorials of past ages. 
If this evidence is to be rejected it must be 
rejected on its own proper grounds; but if 
all positive testimony, and all sound reason- 
ing upon human affairs, go to establish it, 
then the existence of such proof is a phe- 
nomenon which remains to be accounted 
for, and must ever stand in the way of 
positive infidelity. Until we dispose of it, 
we can carry our opposition to the claims 



of our religion no farther than to the length 
of an ambiguous and midway scepticism. 
By adopting a decisive infidelity, We re- 
ject a testimonv, which, of all others, has 
come down to us in the most perfect and 
unsuspicious form. We lock up a source 
of evidence, which is often repaired to in 
other questions of science and history. 
We cut off the authority of principles, 
which, if once exploded, will not terminate 
in the solitary mischief of darkening and 
destroying our theology, but will shed a 
baleful uncertainty over many of the most 
interesting speculations on which the hu- 
man mind can expatiate. 

Even admitting, then, this single objec- 
tion in the subject of our Saviour's testi- 
mony, the whole length to which we can le- 
gitimately carry the objection is scepticism, 
or that dilemma of the mind into which it 
is thrown by two contradictory appear- 
ances. This is the unavoidable result of 
admitting both terms in the alleged con- 
tradiction. Upon the strength of all the 
reasoning which has hitherto occupied us, 
we challenge the infidel to dispose of the 
one term, which lies in the strength of the 
historical evidence. But in different ways, 
we may dispose of the other which lies in 
the alleged falsehood of our Saviour's testi- 
mony. We may deny the truth of the 
geological speculation; nor is it necessary 
to be an accomplished geologist, that we 
may be warranted to deny it. We appeal 
to the speculations of the geologists them- 
selves. They neutraliz 0 one another, and 
leave us in possession of free ground for 
the informations of the Old Testament. 
Our imaginations have been mucji regaled 
by the brilliancy of their speculations, but 
they are so opposite to each other, that we 
now cease to be impressed by their evi- 
dence. But there are other ways of dis- 
posing of the supposed falsehood of our 
Saviour's testimony. Does he really as- 
sert what has been called the Mosaical an- 
tiquity of the world? It is true that he 
gives his distinct testimony to the divine 
legation of Moses ; but does Moses ever say, 
that when God created the heavens and 
the earth, he did more at the time alluded 
to than transform them out of previously 
existing materials ? Or does he ever say, 
that there was not an interval of many 
ages between the first act of creation, de- 
scribed in the first verse of the book of 
Genesis, and said to have been performed 
at the beginning; and those more detailed 
operations, the account of which commen- 
ces at the second verse, and which are de- 
scribed to us as having been performed in 
so many days ? Or, finally, does he ever 
make us to understand, that the genealogies 
of man went any farther than to fix the 
antiquity of the species, and, of conse- 
quence, that they left the antiquity of the 



48 INTERNAL EVIDENCE, AND OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELS. 



globe a free subject for the speculations of 
philosophers ?— We do not pledge our- 
selves for the truth of one or all of these 
suppositions. Nor is it necessary that we 
should. It is enough that any of them is 
Infinitely more rational than the rejection 
of Christianity in the face of its historical 



[chap. 

evidence. This historical evidence re- 
mains in all the obstinacy of experimental 
and well-attested facts ; and as there are so 
many ways of expunging the other term 
in the alleged contradiction, we appeal to 
every enlightened reader, if it is at all can- 
did or philosophical to suffer it to stand. 



CHAPTER VIII. 
On the Internal Evidence, and the Objections of Deistical Infidels. 



There is another species of evidence for 
Christianity, which we have not yet noticed, 
— what is commonly called the internal 
evidence, consisting of those proofs that 
Christianity is a dispensation from heaven, 
which are founded upon the nature of its 
doctrines, and the character of the dispen- 
sation itself. The term "internal evi- 
dence" may be made, indeed, to take up 
more than this. We may take up the New 
Testament as a human composition, and 
without any reference to its subsequent 
history, or to the direct and external testi- 
monies by which it is supported. We 
may collect from the performance itself 
such marks of truth and honesty, as entitle 
us to conclude, that the human agents em- 
ployed in the construction of this book 
were men of veracity and principle. This 
argument has already been resorted to, and 
a very substantial argument it is. It is of 
frequent application in questions of gene- 
ral criticism ; and upon its authority alone 
many of the writers of past times have 
been admitted into credit, and many have 
been condemned as unworthy of it. The 
numerous and correct allusions to the cus- 
toms and institutions, and other statistics of 
the age in which the pieces of the New 
Testament profess to have been written, 
give evidence of their antiquity. The art- 
less and undesigned way in which these 
allusions are interwoven with the whole 
history, impresses upon us the perfect sim- 
plicity of the authors, and the total absence 
of every wish or intention to palm an im- 
posture upon the world. And there is such I 
a thing too as a general air of authenticity, 
which, however difficult to resolve into 
particulars, gives a very close and power- 
ful impression of truth to the narrative. 
There is nothing fanciful in this species of 
internal evidence. It carries in it all the 
certainty of experience, and experience 
too upon a familiar and well-known sub- 
ject, — the characters of honesty in the 
written testimony of our fellow men. We 
are often called upon in private and every- 
day life to exercise our judgment upon the 
spoken testimony of others, and we both 



feel and understand the powerful evidence 
which lies in the tone, the manner, the cir- 
, pumstantiality, the number, the agreement 
of the witnesses, and the consistency of all 
the particulars with what we already know 
from other sources of information. Now 
it is undeniable, that all those marks which 
give evidence and credibility to spoken 
testimony, may also exist to a very impres- 
sive degree in written testimony ; and the 
argument founded upon them, so far from 
being fanciful or illegitimate, has the sanc- 
tion of a principle which no philosopher 
will refuse ; the experience of the human 
mind on a subject on which it is much ex- 
ercised, and which lies completely within 
the range of its observation. 

We cannot say so much, however, for 
the other species of internal evidence, that 
which is founded upon the reasonableness 
of the doctrines, or the agreement which is 
conceived to subsist between the nature of 
the Christian religion and the character of 
the Supreme Being. We have experience 
of man, but we have no experience of God. 
We can reason upon the procedure of 
man in given circumstances, because this is 
an accessible subject, and comes under the 
cognizance of observation; but we cannot 
reason on the procedure of the Almighty in 
given circumstances. This is an inaccessible 
subject and comes not within the limits of 
direct and personal observation. The one, 
like the scale, and compass, and measure- 
ments of Sir Isaac Newton, will lead you on 
safe and firm footing to the true economy of 
[ the heavens ; the other, like the ether and 
whirlpools, and unfounded imaginations of 
Des Cartes, will not only lead you to miscon- 
ceive that economy, but to maintain a stub- 
born opposition to the only competent evi- 
dence that can be offered upon the subject. 

We feel that in thus disclaiming all sup- 
port from what is commonly understood 
by the internal evidence, we do not follow 
the general example of those who have 
written on the Deistical controversy. Take 
up Leland's* performance, and it will be 
found that one half of his discussion is ex- 
pended upon the reasonableness of the doc- 



VIII.] INTERNAL EVIDENCE, AND 

trines, and in asserting the validity of the 
argument which is founded upon that rea- 
sonableness. It would save a vast deal of 
controversy, if it could be proved that all 
this is superfluous and uncalled for; that 
upon the authority of the proofs already 
insisted on, the New Testament must be re- 
ceived as a revelation from heaven; and 
that, instead of sitting in judgment over it, 
nothing remains on our part but an act of 
unreserved submission to all the doctrine 
and information which it offers to us. It is 
conceived, that in this way the general ar- 
gument might be made to assume a more 
powerful and impressive aspect; and the 
defence of Christianity be more accommo- 
dated to the spirit and philosophy of the 
times. 

Since the spirit of Lord Bacon's philoso- 
phy began to be rightly understood, the 
science of external nature has advanced 
with a rapidity unexampled in the history 
of all former ages. The great axiom of his 
philosophy is so simple in its nature, and 
so undeniable in its evidence, that it is 
astonishing how philosophers were so late 
in acknowledging it, or in being directed by 
its authority. It is more than two thousand 
years since the phenomena of external na- 
ture were objects of liberal curiosity to 
speculative and intelligent men. Yet two 
centuries have scarcely elapsed since the 
true path of investigation has been rightly 
pursued, and steadily persevered in ; since 
the evidence of experience has been re- 
ceived as paramount to every other evi- 
dence, or, in other words, since philosophers 
have agreed that the only way to learn the 
magnitude of an object is to measure it, the 
only way to learn its tangible properties is 
to touch it, and the only way to learn its 
visible properties is to look at it. 

Nothing can be more safe or more infal- 
lible than the procedure of the inductive 
philosophy as applied to the phenomena of 
external nature. It is the eye, or the ear- 
witness of every thing which it records. It 
is at liberty to classify appearances, but 
then in the work of classifying, it must be 
directed only by observation. It may group 
phenomena according to their resemblances. 
It may express these resemblances in words, 
and announce them to the world in the form 
of general laws. Yet such is the hardihood 
of the inductive philosophy, that though a 
single well-attested fact should overturn a 
whole system, that fact must be admitted. 
A single experiment is often made to cut 
short the finest process of generalization, 
however painful and humiliating the sacri- 
fice ; and though a theory, the most simple 
and magnificent that ever charmed the eye 
of an enthusiast, was on the eve of emerg- 
ing from it. 

In submitting, then, to the rules of the 
inductive philosophy, we do not deny that 
G 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELS. 49 

certain sacrifices must be made, and some 
of the most urgent propensities of the mind 
put under severe restraint and regulation. 
The human mind feels restless and dissatis- 
fied under the anxieties of ignorance. It 
longs for the repose of conviction; and to 
gain this repose, it will often rather pre- 
cipitate its conclusions, than wait for the 
tardy lights of observation and experiment. 
There is such a thing, too, as the love of 
simplicity and system — a prejudice of the 
understanding, which disposes it to include 
all the phenomena of nature under a few 
sweeping generalities — an indolence, which 
loves to repose on the beauties of a theory, 
rather than encounter the fatiguing detail 
of its evidences — a painful reluctance to the 
admission of facts, which, however true, 
break in upon the majestic simplicity that 
we would fain ascribe to the laws and opera- 
tions of the universe. 

Now, it is the glory of Lord Bacon's phi- 
losophy, to have achieved a victory over 
all these delusions; to have disciplined the 
minds of its votaries into an entire submis- 
sion to evidence ; to have trained them up 
in a kind of steady coldness to all the splen- 
dour and magnificence of theory, and taught 
them to follow, with unfaultering step, 
wherever the sure though humble path of 
experiment may lead them. 

To justify the cautious procedure of the 
inductive philosophy, nothing more is ne- 
cessary than to take a view of the actual 
powers and circumstances of humanity ; of 
the entire ignorance of man when he comes 
into the world, and of the steps by which 
that ignorance is enlightened; of the nu- 
merous errors into which he is misled the 
moment he ceases to observe, and begins to 
presume or to excogitate ; of the actual his- 
tory of science; its miserable progress, so 
long as categories and principles retained 
their ascendency in the schools; and the 
splendour and rapidity of its triumphs, so 
soon as man understood that he was nothing 
more than the disciple of Nature, and must 
take his lesson as Nature offers it to him. 

What is true of the science of external 
nature, holds equally true of the science 
and phenomena of mind. On this subject, 
too, the presumptuous ambition of man car- 
ried him far from the sober path of experi- 
mental inquiry. He conceived that his 
business was not to observe, but to specu- 
late; to construct systems rather than con- 
sult his own experience and the experience 
of others; to collect the materials of his 
theory, not from the history of observed 
facts, but from a set of assumed and excogi- 
tated principles. Now the same observa- 
tions apply to this department of inquiry. 
We must admit to be true, not what we 
presume, but what we find to be so. We 
must restrain the enterprises of fancy. A 
law of the human mind must be only a 



50 



INTERNAL EVIDENCE, AND OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELS. 



[CHAP. 



series of well-authenticated facts, reduced to 
one general description, or grouped together 
under some general points of resemblance. 
The business of the moral as well as of the 
natural philosopher is not to assert what he 
excogitates, but to record what he observes ; 
not to amuse himself with the speculations 
of fancy, but to describe phenomena as he 
sees or as he feels them. This is the busi- 
ness of the moral as well as of the natural 
inquirer. We must extend the application 
of Lord Bacon's principles to moral and 
metaphysical subjects. It was long before 
this application was recognized, or acted 
upon by philosophers. Many of the conti- 
nental speculations are still infected with 
the presumptuous a priori spirit of the old 
schools; though the writings of Reid and 
Stewart have contributed much to chase 
away this spirit from the metaphysics of 
our own country, and to bring the science 
of mind, as well as matter, under the entire 
dominion of the inductive philosophy. 

These general observations we conceive 
to be a most direct and applicable introduc- 
tion to that part of the subject which is 
before us. In discussing the evidence of 
Christianity, all that we ask of our reader 
is to bring along with him the same sober 
and inductive spirit, that is now deemed so 
necessary in the prosecution of the other 
sciences ; to abandon every system of the- 
ology, that is not supported by evidence, 
however much it may gratify his taste, or 
regale his imagination, and to admit any 
system of theology, that is supported by 
evidence, however repugnant to his feelings 
or his prejudices; to make conviction, in 
fact, paramount to inclination, or to fancy; 
and to maintain, through the whole process 
of the investigation, that strength and in- 
trepidity of character, which will follow 
wherever the light of argument may con- 
duct him, though it should land him in con- 
clusions the most nauseous and unpalatable. 

We have no time to enter into causes ; 
but the fact is undeniable. Many philoso- 
phers of the present day are disposed to 
nauseate every thing connected with the- 
ology. They associate something low and 
ignoble with the prosecution of it. They 
regard it, as not a fit subject for liberal in- 
quiry. They turn away from it with dis- 
gust, as one of the humblest departments 
of literary exertion. We do not say that 
they reject its evidences, but they evade the 
investigation of them. They feel no con- 
viction ; not because they have established 
the fallacy of a single argument, but be- 
cause they entertain a general dislike at the 
subject, and will not attend to it. They 
love to expatiate in the more kindred fields 
of science or elegant literature ; and while 
the most respectful caution, and humility, 
and steadiness, are seen to preside over 
every department of moral and physical 



investigation, theology is the only subject 
that is suffered to remain the victim of pre- 
judice, and of a contempt th£ most unjust, 
and the most unphilosophical. 

We do not speak of this feeling as an 
impiety ; we speak of it as an offence against 
the principles of just speculation. We do 
not speak of it as it allures the heart from 
the influence of religion ; we speak of it a8 
it allures the understanding from the influ- 
ence of evidence and truth. In a word, we 
are not preaching against it; we reason 
against it. We contend that it is a trans- 
gression against the rules of the inductive 
philosophy. All that we want is, the ap- 
plication of Lord Bacon's principles to the 
investigation before us ; and as the influ- 
ence Of prejudice and disgust is banished 
from every other department of inquiry, 
we conceive it fair that it should be banish- 
ed from thRology also, and that our sub- 
ject should have the common advantage of 
a hearing, — where no partiality of the heart 
or fancy is admitted, and no other influ- 
ence acknowledged than the influence of 
evidence over the convictions of the under- 
standing. 

Let us therefore endeavour to evince the 
success and felicity with which Lord Ba- 
con's principles may be applied to the in^ 
vestigation before us. 

According to Bacon, man is ignorant of 
every thing antecedent to observation ; and 
there is not a single department of inquiry, 
in which he does not err the moment that he 
abandons it. It is true that the greater 
part of every individual's knowledge is de- 
rived immediately from testimony ; but it- 
is only from testimony that brings home 
to his conviction the observation of others. 
Still it is observation which lies at the 
bottom of his knowledge. Still it is man 
taking his lesson from the actual condition 
of the thing which he contemplates ; a con- 
dition that is altogether independent of his 
will, and which no speculation of his can 
modify or destroy. There is an obstinacy 
in the processes of nature, which he can- 
not controul. He must follow it. The 
construction of a system should not be a 
creative, but an imitative process, which 
admits nothing but what evidence assures 
us to be true, and is founded only on the 
lessons of experience. It is not by the ex- 
ercise of a sublime and speculative inge- 
nuity that man arrives at truth. It is by 
letting himself down to the drudgery of 
observation. It is by descending to the 
sober work of seeing, and feeling, and ex- 
perimenting. Wherever, in short, he has 
not had the benefit of his own observation, 
or the observation of others brought home 
to his conviction by credible testimony, 
there he is ignorant. 

This is found to hold true, even in those 
sciences where the objects of inquiry aro 



VIII.] 



INTERNAL EVIDENCE, AND OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELS. 



51 



the most familiar and the most accessible. 
Before the right method of philosophising 
was acted upon, how grossly did philoso- 
phers misinterpret the phenomena of ex- 
ternal nature, when a steady perseverance 
m the path of observation could have led 
them to infallible certainty ! How misled 
in their conception of every thing around 
them, when, instead of making use of their 
senses, they delivered themselves up to 
the exercises of a solitary abstraction, and 
thought to explain every thing by the fan- 
tastic play of unmeaning terms, and ima- 
ginary principles ! And, when at last set 
on the right path of discovery, how totally 
different were the results of actual observa- 
tion, from those systems which antiquity 
had rendered venerable, and the authority 
of great names had recommended to the 
acquiescence of many centuries! This 
proves that even in the most familiar sub- 
jects, man knows every thing by observa- 
tion, and is ignorant of every thing without 
it; and that he cannot advance a single 
footstep in the acquirement of truth, till he 
bid adieu to the delusions of theory, and 
sternly refuse indulgence to its fondest an- 
ticipations. 

Thus, there is both a humility and a har- 
dihood in the philosophical temper. They 
are the same in principle, though different 
in display. The first is founded on a sense 
of ignorance, and disposes the mind of the 
philosopher to pay the most respectful at- 
tention to every thing that is offered in the 
shape of evidence. The second consists in 
a determined purpose to reject and to sacri- 
fice every thing that offers to oppose the 
influence of evidence, or to set itself up 
against its legitimate and well-established 
conclusions. In the ethereal whirlpools of 
Des Cartes, we see a transgression against 
the humility of the philosophical character. 
It is the presumption of knowledge on a 
subject, where the total want of observation 
should have confined him to the modesty 
of ignorance. In the Newtonian system of 
the world, we see both humility and hardi- 
hood. Sir Isaac commences his investiga- 
tion with all the modesty of a respectful 
inquirer. His is the docility of a scholar, 
who is sensible that he has all to learn. He 
takes his lesson as experience offers it to 
him, and yields a passive obedience to the 
authority of this great schoolmaster. It is 
m his obstinate adherence to the truth 
which his master has given him, that the 
hardihood of the philosophical character 
begins to appear. We see him announce, 
with entire confidence, both the fact and its 
legitimate consequences. We see him not 
deterred by the singularity of his conclu- 
sions, and quite unmindful of that host of 
antipathies which the reigning taste and 
philosophy of the times mustered up to op- 
pose him. We see him resisting the in- 



fluence of every authority, but the authority 
of experience. We see that the beauty of 
the old system had no power to charm him 
from that process of investigation by which 
he destroyed it. W T e see him sitting upon 
its merits with the severity of a judge, un- 
moved by all those graces of simplicity and 
magnificence which the sublime genius of 
its inventor had thrown around it. 

We look upon these two constituents of 
the philosophical temper, as forming the 
best preparation for finally terminating in 
the decided Christian. In appreciating the 
pretensions of Christianity, there is a call 
both upon the humility and the hardihood 
of every inquirer; the humility which feels 
its own ignorance, and submits without re- 
serve to whatever comes before it in the 
shape of authentic and well-established evi- 
dence ; and the hardihood, which sacrifices 
every taste and every prejudice at the shrine 
of conviction, which defies the scorn of a 
pretended philosophy, which is not asham- 
ed of a profession that some conceive to be 
degraded by the homage of the superstitious 
vulgar, which can bring down its mind to 
the homeliness of the Gospel, and renounce, 
without a sigh, all that is elegant, and 
splendid, and fascinating, in the specula- 
tions of moralists. In attending to the com- 
plexion of the Christian argument, we are 
widely mistaken, if it is not precisely that 
kind of argument which will be most readily 
admitted by those whose minds have been 
trained to the soundest habits of philosophi- 
cal investigation; and if that spirit of cau- 
tious and sober-minded inquiry to which 
modern science stands indebted for all her 
triumphs, is not the very identical spirit 
which leads us to " cast down all our lofty 
imaginations, and to bring every thought 
into the captivity of the obedience of 
Christ." 

On entering into any department of in- 
quiry, the best preparation is that docility 
of mind which is founded on a sense of our 
total ignorance of the subject : and nothing 
is looked upon as more unphilosophical 
than the temerity of that a priori spirit, 
which disposes many to presume before 
they investigate. But if we admit the total 
ignorance of man antecedent to observa- 
tion, even in those sciences where the ob- 
jects of inquiry are the nearest and the 
most familiar, we will be more ready to 
admit his total ignorance of those subjects 
which are more remote and more inacces- 
sible. If caution and modesty be esteemed 
so philosophical, even when employed in 
that little field of investigation which comes 
within the range of our senses ; why should 
they not be esteemed philosophical when 
employed on a subject so vast, so awful, so 
remote from direct and personal observa- 
tion, as the government of God? There 
can- be nothing so completely above us, and 



52 INTERNAL EVIDENCE, AND 

beyond as, as the plans of the Infinite Mind, 
which extend to all time, and embrace all 
worlds. There is no subject to which the 
cautious and humble spirit of Lord Bacon's 
philosophy is more applicable ; nor can we 
conceive a more glaring rebellion against 
the authority of his maxims, than for the 
beings of a day to sit in judgment upon the 
Eternal, and apply their paltry experience 
to the counsels of his high and unfathoma- 
ble wisdom. We do not speak of it as im- 
pious; we speak of it as unphilosophical. 
We are not bringing the decrees of the or- 
thodox to bear against it ; we are bringing 
the principles of our modern and enlight- 
ened schools. We are applying the very 
same principles to a system of theism, that 
we would do to a system of geology. Both 
may regale the fancy with the grandeur 
of their contemplations; both may re- 
ceive embellishment from the genius and 
imagination of their inventors; both may 
carry us along with the powers of a capti- 
vating eloquence. But all this is not enough 
to satisfy the severe and scrupulous spirit 
of the modern philosophy. Give us facts. 
Give us appearances. Show us how, from 
the experience of a life or a century, you 
can draw a legitimate conclusion so bound- 
less in its extent, and by which you propose 
to fix down both the processes of a remote 
antiquity, and the endless progressions 
either of nature or of providence in future 
ages. Are there any historical documents? 
Any memorials of the experience of past 
times ? On a question of such magnitude, 
we would esteem the recorded observations 
of some remote age to be peculiarly valua- 
ble, and worth all the ingenuity and elo- 
quence which a philosopher could bestow 
on the limited experience of one or two 
generations. A process of geology may 
take millions of years before it reaches its 
accomplishment. It is impossible that we 
can collect the law or the character of this 
process from the experience of a single 
century, which does not furnish us one 
single step in this vast and immeasurable 
progression. We look as far as we can 
into a distant antiquity, and take hold with 
avidity of any authentic document, by 
which we can ascertain a single fact to 
guide and to enlighten us in this interesting 
speculation. The same caution is necessary 
in the subject before us. The administra- 
tion of the Supreme Being is coeval with 
the first purposes of his uncreated mind, and 
it points to eternity. The life of man is but 
a point in that progress, to which we see 
no end, and can assign no beginning. We 
are not able to collect the law or the cha- 
racter of this administration from an expe- 
rience so momentary. We therefore cast 
an eye on the history of past times. We 
examine every document which comes be- 
fore us. We compare all the moral phe- 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELS. [CHAP. 

nomena which can be collected from the 
narratives of antiquity. We seize with 
avidity every record of the manifestations 
of Providence, every fact which can en- 
lighten the ways of God to man ; and we 
would esteem it a deviation from the right 
spirit and temper of philosophical investi- 
gation, were we to suffer the crude or 
fanciful speculations of our own limited 
experience to take a precedency over the 
authentic informations of history. 

But this is not all. Our experience is not 
only limited in point of time; it is also 
limited in point of extent. To assign the 
character of the divine administration from 
the little that offers itself to the notice of 
our own personal experience, would be far 
more absurd than to infer the history and 
character of the kingdom from the history 
and character of our own family. Vain is 
the attempt to convey in language what the 
most powerful imagination sinks under; 
how small the globe, and " all which it in- 
herits," is in the immensity of creation! 
How humble a corner in the immeasurable 
fields of nature and of providence ! If the 
whole visible creation were to be swept 
away, we think of the dark and awful soli- 
tude which it would leave behind it in the 
unpeopled regions of space. But to a mind 
that could take in the whole, and throw a 
wide survey over the innumerable worlds 
which roll beyond the ken of the human 
eye, there would be no blank, and the uni- 
verse of God would appear a scene as goodly 
and majestic as ever. Now it is the ad- 
ministration of this God that we sit in judg- 
ment upon; the counsels of Him, whose 
wisdom and energy are of a kind so inex- 
plicable; whom no magnitude can over- 
power, whom no littleness can escape, 
whom no variety can bewilder ; who gives 
vegetation to every blade of grass, and 
moves every particle of blood which cir- 
culates through the veins of the minutest 
animal ; and all this by the same omnipotent 
arm that is abroad upon the universe, and 
presides in high authority over the destiny 
of all worlds. 

It is impossible not to mingle the moral 
impressions of piety with such a contempla- 
tion. But suppose these impressions to be 
excluded, that the whole may be reduced 
to a matter of abstract and unfeeling intelli- 
gence. The question under consideration 
is, How far the experience of man can lead 
him to any certain conclusions, as to the 
character of the divine administration; if it 
does lead him to some certain conclusions, 
then in the spirit of the Baconian philoso- 
phy, he will apply these conclusions to the 
information derived from other sources; 
and they will of course affect, or destroy, 
or confirm the credibility of that informa- 
tion. If, on the other hand, it appears 
that experience gives no light, no direc- 



VIII.] 



INTERNAL EVIDENCES, AND OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELS. 



53 



tion on the subject, then, in the very same 
spirit, he will submit his mind as a blank 
surface to all the positive information 
which comes to it from any other quar- 
ter. We take our lesson as it comes to 
us, provided we are satisfied beforehand, 
that it comes from a source which is au- 
thentic. We set up no presumptions of our 
own against the authority of the unques- 
tionable evidence that we have met with, 
and reject all the suggestions which our de- 
fective experience can furnish, as the follies 
of a rash and fanciful speculation. 

Now, let it be observed, that the great 
strength of the Christian argument lies in 
the historical evidence for the truth of the 
Gospel narrative. In discussing the light 
of this evidence, we walk by the light of ex- 
perience. We assign the degree of weight 
that is due to the testimony of the first 
Christians upon the observed principles of 
human nature. We do not step beyond 
the cautious procedure of Lord Bacon's 
philosophy. We keep within the safe and 
certain limits of experimental truth. We 
believe the testimony of the apostles, be- 
cause, from what we know of the human 
character, it is impossible that men in their 
circumstances could have persevered as 
they did in the assertion of a falsehood ; it 
is impossible that they could have imposed 
this falsehood upon such a multitude of fol- 
lowers ; it is impossible that they could 
have escaped detection, surrounded as they 
were by a host of enemies, so eager and so 
determined in their resentments. On this 
kind of argument we are quite at home. 
There is no theory, no assumption. We 
feel every inch of the ground we are tread- 
ing upon. The degree of credit that should 
be annexed to the testimony of the apostles, 
is altogether a question of experience. Every 
principle which we apply towards the de- 
cision of this question is founded upon ma- 
terials which lie before us, and are every 
day within the reach of observation. Our 
belief in the testimony of the apostles, is 
founded upon our experience of human na- 
ture and human affairs. In the whole process 
of the inquiry, we never wander from that 
sure, though humble path, which has been 
pointed out to us by the great master of 
philosophising. We never cast off the au- 
thority of those maxims which have been 
found in every other department of know- 
ledge to be sound and infallible. We never 
suffer assumption to take the precedency 
of observation, or abandon that safe and 
certain mode of investigation, which is the 
only one suited to the real mediocrity of 
our powers. 

It appears to us, that the disciples of the 
infidel philosophy have reversed this pro- 
cess. They take a loftier flight. You sel- 
dom find them upon the ground of the 
historical evidence. It is not in general, 



upon the weight, or the nature of human 
testimony, that they venture to pronounce 
on the credibility of the Christian revela- 
tion. It is on the character of that revela- 
tion itself. It is on what they conceive to 
be the absurdity of its doctrines. It is be- 
cause they see something in the nature or 
dispensation of Christianity, which they 
think disparaging to the attributes of God, 
and not agreeable to that line of proceeding 
which the Almighty should observe in the 
government of his creatures. Rousseau ex- 
presses his astonishment at the strength of 
the historical testimony; so strong, that the 
inventor of the narrative appeared to him 
to be more miraculous than the hero. But 
the absurdities of this said revelation are 
sufficient in his mind to bear down the 
whole weight of its direct and external evi- 
dences. There was something in the doc- 
trines of the New Testament repulsive to 
the taste and the imagination, and perhaps 
even to the convictions of this interesting 
enthusiast. He could not reconcile them 
with his pre-established conceptions of the 
divine character and mode of operation. 
To submit to these doctrines, he behoved to 
surrender that theism, which the powers of 
his ardent mind had wrought up into a 
most beautiful and delicious speculation. 
Such a sacrifice was not to be made. It 
was too painful. It would have taken away 
from him, what every mind of genius and 
sensibility esteems to be the highest of all 
luxuries. It would destroy a system, which 
had all that is fair and magnificent to re- 
commend it, and mar the gracefulness of 
that fine intellectual picture, on which this 
wonderful man had bestowed all the em- 
bellishments of feeling, and fancy, and elo- 
quence. 

In as far, then, as we can judge of the 
conduct of man in given circumstances, we 
would pass a favourable sentence upon the 
testimony of the apostles. But, says the 
Deist, I judge of the conduct of God ; and 
what the apostles tell me of him is so oppo- 
site to that judgment, that I discredit their 
testimony. The question at issue between 
us is, shall we admit the testimony of the 
apostles, upon the application of principles 
founded on observation, and as certain as is 
our experience of human affairs'? Or, shall 
we reject that testimony upon the applica- 
tion of principles that are altogether beyond 
the range of observation, and as doubtful 
and imperfect in their nature, as is our ex- 
perience of the counsels of heaven 1 In the 
first argument there is no assumption. We 
are competent to judge of the behaviour of 
man in given circumstances. This is a sub- 
ject completely accessible to observation. 
The second argument is founded upon as- 
sumption entirely. We are not competent 
to judge of the conduct of the Almighty in 
given circumstances. Here we are pre- 



54 



INTERNAL EVIDENCES, AND OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELS. 



[CHAP. 



eluded, by the nature of the subject, from 
the benefit of observation. There is no an- 
tecedent experience to guide or to enlighten 
us. It is not right, for man to assume what 
is right, or proper, or natural for the Al- 
mighty to do. It is not in the mere spirit 
of piety that we say so ; it is in the spirit 
of the soundest experimental philosophy. 
The argument of -the Christian is precisely 
what the maxims of Lord Bacon would dis- 
pose us to acquiesce in. The argument of 
the infidel is precisely, that argument which 
the same maxims would dispose us to re- 
ject ; and when put by the side of the Chris- 
tian argument, it appears as crude and as 
unphilosophical as do the ingenious specu- 
lations of the schoolmen, when set in oppo- 
sition to the rigour, and evidence, and pre- 
cision, which reign in every department of 
modern science. 

The application of Lord Bacon's philoso- 
phy to the study of external nature was a 
happy epoch in the history of physical sci- 
ence. It is not long since this application 
has been extended to the study of moral 
and intellectual phenomena. All that we 
contend for is, that our subject should have 
the benefit of the same application ; and we 
count it hard while, in every other depart- 
ment of inquiry, a respect for truth is found 
sufficient to repress the appetite for sys- 
tem-building, that theology, the loftiest and 
most inaccessible of all the sciences, should 
still remain infected with a spirit so ex- 
ploded, and so unphilosophical; and that 
the fancy, and theory, and unsupported 
speculation, so current among the Deists 
and demi-infidels of the day, should be held 
paramount to the authority of facts, which 
have come down to us with a weight of 
evidence and testimony, that is quite unex- 
ampled in the history of ancient times. 

What is science, but a record of observed 
phenomena, grouped together accoiding to 
certain points of resemblance, which have 
been suggested by an actual attention to 
the phenomena themselves? We never 
think of questioning the existence of the 
phenomena, after we have demonstrated the 
genuineness and authenticity of the record. 
After this is demonstrated, the singular or 
unexpected nature of the phenomena is not 
suffered to weaken their credibility, — a credi- 
bility which can only be destroyed by the 
authority of our own personal observation, or 
some other record possessed of equal or supe- 
rior pretensions. But in none of the inductive 
sciences is it in the power of a student to 
verify every thing by his own personal ob- 
servation. He must put up with the ob- 
servations of others, brought home to the 
convictions of his own mind by creditable 
testimony. In the science of geology, this 
is eminently the case. In a science of such 
extent, our principles must be in part 
founded upon the observations of others, 



transmitted to us from a distant country. 
And in a science, the processes of which 
are so lengthened in point of time, our prin- 
ciples should also in part ]?e founded on the 
observations of others, transmitted to us 
from a remote antiquity. Any observations 
of our own are so limited, both in point of 
space and of time, that we never think of 
opposing their authority to the evidence 
which is laid before us. Our whole attention 
is directed to the validity of the record; and 
the moment that this validity is established, 
we hold it incumbent upon us to submit 
our minds to the entire and unmodified 
impression of the testimony contained in it. 
Now, all that we ask is, that the same pro- 
cess of investigation be observed in theolo- 
gy, which is held to be so sound and so le- 
gitimate in other sciences. In a science of 
such extent, as to embrace the wide domain of 
moral and intelligent nature, we feel the lit- 
tleness of that range to which our own per- 
sonal observations are confined. We shall 
be glad, not merely of the information 
transmitted to us from a distant country, 
but of the authentic information transmit- 
ted to us by any other order of beings, in 
some distant and unknown part of the crea- 
tion. In a science, too, which has for its 
object the lengthened processes of the di- 
vine administration, we should like, if any 
record of past times could enable us to ex- 
tend our observations beyond the limits of 
our own ephemeral experience ; and if there 
are any events of a former age possessed 
of such a peculiar and decisive character, 
as would help us to some satisfactory con- 
clusion in this greatest and most interesting 
of the sciences. 

On a subject so much above us and be- 
yond us, we would never think of opposing 
any preconceptions to the evidence of his- 
tory. We would maintain the humility of 
the inductive spirit. We would cast about 
for facts, and events and appearances. We 
would offer our minds as a blank surface 
to every thing that came to them, suppor- 
ted by unexceptionable evidence. It is not 
upon the nature of the facts themselves, 
that we would pronounce upon their credi- 
bility, but upon the nature of that testi- 
mony by which they were supported. Our 
whole attention would be directed to the 
authority of the record. After this was 
established, we would surrender our whole 
understanding to its contents. We would 
school down every antipathy within us, 
and disown it as a childish affection, un- 
worthy of a philosopher who professes to 
follow truth through all the disgusts and 
discouragements which surround it. There 
are men of splendid reputation in our en- 
lightened circles, who never attended to 
this speculation, and who annex to the 
Gospel of Christ nothing else than ideas 
of superstition and vulgarity. In braving 



CHAP.] 



INTERNAL EVIDENCE, AND OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELS. 



55 



their contempt, we would feel ourselves 
in the best element for the display and ex- 
ercise of the philosophical temper. We 
would rejoice in the omnipotence of truth, 
and anticipate, in triumph, the victory which 
it must accomplish over the pride of science, 
and the fastidiousness of literature. It would 
not be the enthusiasm of a visionary which 
would support us, but the inward working 
of the very same principle which sustained 
Galileo, when he adhered to the result of 
his experiments, and Newton, when he op- 
posed his measurements and observations 
to the tide of prejudice he had to encoun- 
ter from the prevailing taste and philoso- 
phy of the times. 

We conceive that inattention to the 
above principles has led many of the most 
popular and respected writers in the Deisti- 
cal controversy to introduce a great deal 
of discussion that is foreign to the merits 
of the question altogether; and in this way 
the attention is often turned away from the 
point in which the main strength of the 
argument lies. An infidel, for example, 
objects against one of the peculiar doc- 
trines of Christianity. To repel the objec- 
tion, the Christian conceives it necessary 
to vindicate the reasonableness of that doc- 
trine, and to show how consistent it is with 
all those antecedent' conceptions which we 
derived from the light of natural religion. 
All this we count superfluous. It is im- 
posing an unnecessary task upon ourselves. 
Enough for us to have established the au- 
thority of the Christian revelation upon the 
ground of its historical evidence. All that 
remains is to submit our minds to the fair 
interpretation of Scripture. Yes; but how 
do you dispose of the objection drawn from 
the light of natural religion? In precisely 
the same way that we would dispose of an 
objection drawn from some speculative sys- 
tem, against the truth of any physical fact 
that has been well established by observa- 
tion or testimony. We would disown the 
system, and oppose the obstinacy of the 
fact to all the elegance and ingenuity of the 
speculation. 

We are sensible that this is not enough 
to satisfy a numerous class of very sincere 
and well disposed Christians. There are 
many of this description, who, antecedent 
to the study of the Christian revelation alto- 
gether, repose a very strong confidence in 
the light of natural religion, and think that 
upon the mere strength of its evidence, they 
can often pronounce with a considerable 
( degree of assurance on the character of the 
divine administration. To such as these, 
something more is necessary than the ex- 
ternal evidences on which Christianity 
rests. You must reconcile the doctrines 
of Christianity with those previous concep- 
tions which the light of nature has given 
them ; and a great deal of elaborate argu- 



ment is often expended in bringing abotr 
this accommodation. It is, of course, a work 
of greater difficulty, to convince this descrip- 
tion of people, though in point of fact, this 
difficulty has been overcome, in a way the 
most masterly and decisive, by one of the 
soundest and most philosophical of our 
theologians. 

To another description of Christians, this 
attempt to reconcile the doctrines of Chris- 
tianity with the light of natural religion is 
superfluous. Give them historical evidence 
for the truth of Christianity, and all that 
natural religion may have taught them will 
fly like so many visionary phantoms before 
the light of its overbearing authority. With 
them the argument is reduced to a narrower 
compass. Is the testimony of the apostles and 
first Christians sufficient to establish the credi- 
bility of the facts which are recorded in the 
New Testament 1 The question is made to 
rest exclusive] y on the character of this testi- 
mony, and the circumstances attending it; 
and no antecedent theology of their own is 
suffered to mingle with the investigation. If 
the h istorical evidence of Christianity is found 
to be conclusive, they conceive the investi- 
gation to be at an end ; and that nothing re- 
mains on their part, but an act of uncondi- 
tional submission to all its doctrines. 

Though it might be proper, in the present 
state of opinion, to accommodate to both 
these cases, yet we profess ourselves to be- 
long to the latter description of Christians. 
We hold by the total insufficiency of na- 
tural religion to pronounce upon the intrin- 
sic merits of any revelation, and think that 
the authority of every revelation rests ex- 
clusively upon its external evidences, and 
upon such marks of honesty in the composi- 
tion itself as would apply to any human per- 
formance. We rest this opinion, not upon 
any fanatical impression of the ignorance 
of man, or how sinful it is for a weak and 
guilty mortal to pronounce upon the coun- 
sels of heaven, and the laws of the divine 
administration. We disown this presump- 
tion, not merely because it is sinful, but be- 
cause we conceive it to be unphilosophical, 
and precisely analogous to that theorising 
a priori spirit, which the wisdom of Ba- 
con has banished from all the schools of 
philosophy. 

For the satisfaction of the first class, we 
refer them to that argument which has been 
prosecuted with so much ability and suc- 
cess by Bishop Butler, in his Analogy of 
Natural and Revealed Religion. It is not 
so much the object of this author to found 
any positive argument on the accord ancy 
which subsists between the process of the 
divine administration in nature, and the 
processes ascribed to God by revelation, as to 
repel the argument founded upon their sup- 
posed discordancy. To one of the second 
class, the argument of Bishop Butler is not 



56 



ARGUMENT TO ATHEISTICAL INFIDELS. 



[CHAP. 



called for ; but as to one of the first class, 
we can conceive nothing more calculated to 
quiet his difficulties. He believes a God, 
and he must therefore believe the character 
and existence of God to be reconcileable 
with all that he observes in the events and 
phenomena around him. He questions the 
claims of the New Testament to be a reve- 
lation from heaven, because he conceives, 
that it ascribes a plan and an economy to the 
Supreme Being, which are unworthy of 
his character. We offer no positive solu- 
tion of this difficulty. We profess ourselves 
to be too little acquainted with the charac- 
ter of God ; and that in this little corner of 
his works, we see not far enough to offer 
any decision on the merits of a government, 
which embraces worlds, and reaches eter- 
nity. We think we do enough, if we give 
a sufficiency of external proof for the New 
Testament being a true and authentic mes- 
sage from heaven ; and that therefore no- 
thing remains for us, but to attend and to 
submit to it. But the argument of Bishop 
Butler enables us to do still more than this. 
It enables us to say, that the very thing ob- 
jected against in Christianity exists in na- 
ture ; and that therefore the same God who 
is the author of nature, may be the author 
of Christianity. We do not say that any 
positive evidence can be founded upon this 
analogy. But in as far as it goes to repel 
the objection, it is triumphant. A man has 



no right to retain his theism, if he rejects 
Christianity upon difficulties to which na- 
tural religion is equally liable. If Chris- 
tianity tells us, that the guilt of a father has 
brought sufferings and vice upon his poste- 
rity, it is what we see exemplified in a thou- 
sand instances among the families around 
us. If it tells us, that the innocent have 
suffered for the guilty, it is nothing more 
than what all history and all observation 
have made perfectly familial to us. If it 
tells us of one portion of the human race 
being distinguished by the sovereign will 
of the Almighty for superior knowledge, 
or superior privileges, it only adds one 
inequality more to the many inequalities 
which we perceive every day in the 
gifts of nature, of fortune, and of provi- 
dence. In short, without entering into all 
the details of that argument, which Butler 
has brought forward in a way so masterly 
and decisive, there is not a single impeach- 
ment which can be offered against the God 
of Christianity, that may not, if consistently 
proceeded upon, be offered against the God 
of Nature itself ; if the one be unworthy of 
God, the other is equally so ; and if in spite 
of these difficulties, you still retain the con- 
viction, that there is a God of Nature, it is 
not fair or rational to suffer them to out- 
weigh all that positive evidence and testimo- 
ny, which have been adduced for proving that 
the same God is the God of Christianity also. 



CHAPTER IX. 

On the Way of Proposing the Argument to Atheistical hfidels. 



If Christianity be still resisted, it appears 
to us that the only consistent refuge is 
Atheism. The very same peculiarities in 
the dispensation of the Gospel, which lead 
the infidel to reject it as unworthy of God, 
go to prove, that nature is unworthy of 
him, and land us in the melancholy confu- 
sion, that whatever theory can be afforded 
as to the mysterious origin and existence 
of the things which be, they are not under 
the dominion of a supreme and intelligent 
mind. Nor do we look upon Atheism as a 
more hopeless species of infidelity than 
Deism, unless in so far as it proves a more 
stubborn disposition of the heart to resist 
every religious conviction. Viewed purely 
as an intellectual subject, we look upon the 
mind of an Atheist, as in a better state of 
preparation for the proofs of Christianity 
than the mind of the Deist. The one is a 
blank surface, on which evidence may make 
a fair impression, and where the finger of 
history may inscribe its credible and well- 
attested information. The other is occupied 



with pre-conceptions. It will not take what 
history offers to it. It puts itself into the 
same unphilosophical posture, in which the 
mind of a prejudiced Cartesian opposed its 
theory of the heavens to the demonstration 
and measurment of Newton. The theory 
of the Deist upon a subject where truth is 
still more inaccessible, and speculation still 
more presumptuous, sets him to resist the 
only safe and competent evidence that can 
be appealed to. What was originally the 
evidence of observation, and is now trans- 
formed into the evidence of testimony, comes 
down to us in a series of historical docu- 
ments, the closest and most consistent that 
all antiquity can furnish. It is the unfor- 
tunate theory which forms the grand ob- 
stacle to the admission of the Christian mi- 
racles, and which leads the Deist to an ex- 
hibition of himself so unphilosophical, as 
that of trampling on the soundest laws of 
evidence, by bringing an historical fact 
under the tribunal of a theoretical princi- 
ple. The Deistical speculation of Rousseau, 



IX.] 



ARGUMENT TO ATHEISTICAL INFIDELS. 



O? 



by which he neutralized the testimony of 
the first Christians, is as complete a trans- 
gression against the temper and principles 
of true science, as a category of Aristotle 
when employed to overrule an experiment 
in chemistry. But however this be. it is 
evident that Rousseau would have given a 
readier reception to the Gospel history, had 
his mind not been pre-occupied with the 
speculation ; and the negative state of Athe- 
ism would have been more favourable to the 
admission of those facts which are connect- 
ed with the origin and establishment of our 
religion in the world. 

This suggests the way in which the evi- 
dence for Christianity should be carried 
home to the mind of an Atheist. He sees 
nothing in the phenomena around him, that 
can warrant him to believe in the existence 
of a living and intelligent principle, which 
gave birth and movement to all things. He 
does not say that he would refuse credit to 
the existence of God upon sufficient evi- 
dence, but he says that there are not such 
appearances of design in nature, as to sup- 
ply him with that evidence. He does not 
deny the existence of God to be a possible 
truth ; but he affirms, that while there is 
nothing before him but the consciousness 
of what passes within, and the observation 
of what passes without, it remains an asser- 
tion destitute of proof, and can have no 
more effect upon his conviction than any 
other nonentity of the imagination. There 
is a mighty difference between not proven 
and disyroven. We see nothing in the 
argument of the Athiest which goes farther 
than to establish the former sentence upon 
the question of God's existence. It is alto- 
gether an argument ab ignorantia; and 
the same ignorance which restrains them 
from asserting in positive terms that God 
exists, equally restrains them from assert- 
ing in positive terms that God does not 
exist. The assertion may be offered, that, 
in some distant regions of the creation, 
there are tracts of space which, instead of 
being occupied like the tracts around us 
with suns and planetary systems, teem only 
with animated beings, who, without being 
supported like us on the firm surface of a 
world, have the power of spontaneous 
movements in free spaces. We cannot say 
that the assertion is not true, but we can say 
that it is not proven. It carries in it no 
positive character either of truth or false- 
hood, and may therefore be admitted on ap- 
propriate and satisfying evidence. But till 
that evidence comes, the mind is in a state 
entirely neutral : and such we conceive to 
be the neutral state of the Atheist, as to 
what he holds to be the unproved assertion 
of the existence of God. 

To the neutral mind of the Atheist, then, 
unfurnished as it is with any previous con- 
ception, we offer the historical evidence of 



Christianity. We do not ask him to pre- 
sume the existence of God. We ask him 
to examine the miracles of the New Testa- 
ment merely as recorded events, and to ad- 
mit no other principle into the investiga- 
tion, than those which are held to be satis- 
fying and decisive, on any other subject 
of written testimony. The sweeping prin- 
ciple upon which Rosseau, filled with his 
own assumptions, condemned the historical 
evidence for the truth of the Gospel narra- 
tive, can have no influence on the blank 
and unoccupied mind of an Atheist. He 
has no presumptions upon the subject j for 
to his eyes the phenomena of nature sit so 
loose and unconnected with that intelligent 
Being, to whom they have been referred as 
their origin, that he does not feel himself 
entitled, from the phenomena, to ascribe any 
existence, any character, any attributes, or 
any method of administration to such a 
Being. He is therefore in the best possible 
condition for submitting his understanding 
to the entire impression of the historical 
evidence. Those difficulties which perplex 
the Deist, who cannot recognize in the God 
of the New Testament the same features 
and the same principles in which they have 
invested the God of Nature, are no difficul- 
ties to him. He has no God of nature to 
confront with that real though invisible 
power which lay at the bottom of those 
astonishing miracles, on which history has 
stamped her most authentic characters. 
Though the power which presided there 
should be an arbitrary, an unjust, or a ma- 
lignant being, all this may startle a Deist, 
but it will not prevent a consistent Atheist 
from acquiescing in any legitimate infer- 
ence, to which the miracles of the Gospel, 
viewed in the simple light of historical facts, 
may chance to carry him. He cannot bring 
his antecedent information into play upon 
this question. He professes to have no an- 
tecedent information on the subject; and 
this sense of his entire ignorance, which lies 
at the bottom of his Atheism, would ex- 
punge from his mind all that is theoretical, 
and make it the passive recipient of every 
thing which observation offers to its notice, 
or which credible testimony has brought 
down to it of the history of past ages. 

What then, we ask, does the Atheist make 
of the miracles of the New Testament t If 
he questions their truth, he must do it upon 
grounds that are purely historical ; he is 
precluded from every other ground by the 
very principle on which he has rested his 
Atheism ; and we therefore, upon the 
strength of that testimony which has been 
already exhibited, press the admission of 
these miracles as facts. If there be nothing 
then, in the ordinary phenomena of nature, 
to infer a God, do these extraordinary phe- 
nomena supply him with no argument? Does 
a voice from heaven make no impression 



58 



SUPREME AUTHORITY OF REVELATION. 



[CHA£» 



upon him ? And we have the best evidence 
which history can furnish, that such a voice 
was uttered ; " This is my beloved Son in 
whom I am well pleased." We have the evi- 
dence of a fact for the existence of that very 
Being from whom the voice proceeded, and 
the evidence of a thousand facts, for a power 
superior to nature 5 because, on the impulse 
of a volition, it counteracted her laws and 
processes, it allayed the wind, it gave sight 
to the blind, health to the diseased, and, at 
the utterance of a voice, it gave life to the 
dead. The ostensible agent in all these won- 
derful proceedings gave not only credentials 
of his power, but he gave such credentials 
of his honesty, as dispose our understanding 
to receive his explanation of them. We do 
not avail ourselves of any other principle 
than what an Atheist will acknowledge. He 
understands as well as we do, the natural 
signs of veracity which lie in the tone, the 
manner, the countenance, the high moral 
expression of worth and benevolence, and, 
above all, in that firm and undaunted con- 
stancy, which neither contempt, nor poverty, 
nor death, could shift from any of its positions. 
All these claims upon our belief, were ac- 
cumulated to an unexampled degree in the 
person of Jesus of Nazareth ; and when we 
couple with them his undoubted miracles, 
and the manner in which his own personal 
appearance was followed up by a host of 
witnesses, who, after a catastrophe which 
would have proved a death-blow to any 
cause of imposture, offered themselves to 
the eye of the public, with the same powers, 
the same evidence, and the same testimony, 
it seems impossible to resist his account of 
the invisible principle, which gave birth and 
movement to the whole of this wonderful 
transaction. Whatever Atheism we may 
have founded on the common phenomena 
around us, here is a new phenomena which 



demands our attention, — the testimony of a 
man who in addition to evidences of honesty 
more varied and more satisfying than were 
ever offered by a brother of the species, had 
a voice from the clouds, and the power of 
working miracles, to vouch for him. We 
do not think the account which this man 
gives of himself can be viewed either with 
indifference or distrust, and the account is 
most satisfying. " I proceeded forth, and 
came from God." — "He whom God hath 
sent speaketh the words of God." — "Even 
as the Father said unto me, so I speak." 
He hath elsewhere said that God was his 
Father. The existence of God is here laid 
before us, by an evidence altogether distinct 
from the natural argument of the schools ; 
and it may therefore be admitted in spite of 
the deficiency of that argument. From 
the same pure and unquestionable source 
we gather our information of his attri- 
butes. " God is true." — " God is a spirit." 
He is omnipotent, " for with God all things 
are possible." He is intelligent, " for he 
knoweth what things we have need of." 
He sees all things, and he directs all things, 
" for the very hairs of our head are num- 
bered," and " a sparrow falleth not to the 
ground without his permission." 

The evidences of the Christian religion 
are suited to every species of infidelity. 
We do not ask the Atheist to furnish him- 
self with any previous conception. We ask 
him to come as he is ; and upon the strength 
of his own favourite principle, viewing it as 
a pure intellectual question, and abstracting 
from the more unmanageable tendencies of 
the heart and temper, we conceive his un- 
derstanding to be in a high state of prepara- 
tion, for taking in Christianity in a far purer 
and more scriptural form, than can be expect- 
ed from those whose minds are tainted and 
pre-occupied with their former speculations. 



CHAPTER X. 

On the Supreme Authority of Revelation. 



If the New Testament be a message 
from God, it behoves us to make an entire 
and unconditional surrender of our minds, 
to all the duty and to all the information 
which it sets before us. 

There is, perhaps, nothing more tho- 
roughly beyond the cognizance of the hu- 
man faculties, than the truths of religion, 
and the ways of that mighty and invisible 
Being who is the object of it; and yet 
nothing, we will venture to say, has been 
made the subject of more hardy and adven- 
turous speculation. We make no allusion 
at present to Deists, who reject the autho- 



rity of the New T Testament, because the 
plan and the dispensation of the Almighty 
which is recorded there, is different from 
that plan and that dispensation which they 
have chosen to ascribe to him. We speak 
of Christians, who profess to admit the 
authority of this record, but who have 
tainted the purity of their profession by 
not acting upon its exclusive authority; 
who have mingled their own thoughts and 
their own fancy with its information ; who, 
instead of repairing in every question, 
and in every difficulty, to the principle of 
"WTiat readest thou," have abridged the 



SUPREME AUTHORITY OF REVELATION. 



X.j 

sovereignty of this principle, by appealing 
to others, of which we undertake to make 
out the incompetency ; who, in addition to 
the word of God, talk also of the reason of 
the thing, or the standard of orthodoxy ; 
and have in fact brought down the Bible 
from the high place which belongs to it, as 
the only tribunal to which the appeal should 
be made, or from which the decision should 
be looked for. 

But it is not merely among partizans or 
the advocates of a system, that we meet 
with this indifference to the authority of 
what is written. It lies at the bottom of a 
great deal of that looseness, both in prac- 
tice and speculation, which we meet with 
every day in society, and which we often 
hear expressed in familiar conversation. 
Whence that list of maxims which are so 
indolently conceived, but which, at the 
same time, are so faithfully proceeded upon? 
" We have all our passions and infirmities ; 
but we have honest hearts, and that will 
make up for them. Men are not all cast in 
the same mould. God will not call us to 
task too rigidly for our foibles; at least 
this is our opinion, and God can never be 
so unmerciful, or so unjust, as to bring us to 
a severe and unforgiving tribunal for the 
mistakes of the understanding." Now it is 
not licentiousness in general, which we are 
speaking against. It is against that sanc- 
tion which it appears to derive from the 
self-formed maxims of him who is guilty 
of it. It is against the principle, that either 
an error of doctrine, or an indulgence of 
passion, is to be exempted from condemna- 
tion, because it has an opinion of the mind 
to give it countenance and authority. What 
we complain of is, that a man no sooner 
sets himself forward and says, " this is my 
sentiment," than he conceives that all cul- 
pability is taken away from the error, 
either of practice or speculation, into which 
he has fallen. The carelessness with which 
the opinion has been formed, is of no ac- 
count in the estimate. It is the mere ex- 
istence of the opinion, which is pleaded in 
vindication; and under the authority of our 
maxim, and our mode of thinking, every 
man conceives himself to have a right to 
his own way and his own peculiarity. 

Mow this might be all very fair, were 
there no Bible and no revelation in exist- 
ence. But it is not fair, that all this loose- 
ness, and all this variety, should be still 
floating in the world, in the face of an 
authoritative communication from God him- 
self. Had no messsage come to us from 
the Fountain-head of truth, it were natural 
enough for every individual mind to betake 
itself to its own speculation. But a mes- 
sage has come to us, bearing on its fore- 
head every character of authenticity ; and 
is it right now, that the question of our 
faith, or of our duty, should be committed 



to the capricious variations of this man's 
taste, or of that man's fancy ? Our maxim, 
and our sentiment ! God has put an autho- 
rative stop to all this. He has spoken, and 
the right or the liberty of speculation no 
longer remains to us. The question now 
is, not " What thinkest thou ?" In the days 
of Pagan antiquity, no other question could 
be put ; and to the wretched delusions and 
idolatries of that period let us see what 
kind of answer the human mind is capable 
of making, when left to its own guidance, 
and its own authority. But we call our- 
selves Christians, and profess to receive the 
Bible as the directory of our faith ; and the 
only question in which we are concerned, 
is, " What is written in the law ? how read- 
est thou?" 

But there is a way of escaping from 
this conclusion. No man calling himself 
a Christian, will ever disown in words 
the authority of the Bible. Whatever be 
counted the genuine interpretation, it must 
be submitted to. But in the act of coming 
to this interpretation, it will be observed, 
there is room for the unwarrantable prin- 
ciples which we are attempting to ex- 
pose. The business of a scripture critic 
is to give a fair representation of the sense 
of all its passages as they exist in the origi- 
nal. Now, this is a process which requires 
some investigation, and it is during the time 
that this process is carrying on, that the 
tendencies and antecedent opinions of the 
mind are suffered to mislead the inquirer 
from the true principles of the business in 
which he is employed. The mind and 
meaning of the author, who is translated, is 
purely a question of language, and should 
be decided upon no other principles than 
those of grammar or philology. Now, what 
we complain of is, that while this principle 
is recognized and acted upon in every other 
composition which has come down to us 
from antiquity, it has been most glaringly 
departed from- in the case of the Bible ; that 
the meaning of its author, instead of being 
made singly and entirely a question of 
grammar, has been made a question of me- 
taphysics, or a question of sentiment ; that 
instead of the argument resorted to being, 
" such must be the rendering from the struc- 
ture of the language, and the import and 
significancy of its phrases," it has been, 
" such must be the rendering from the ana- 
logy of the faith, the reason of the thing, the 
character of the Divine mind, and the wis- 
dom of all his dispensations." And whether 
this argument be formally insisted upon or 
not, we have still to complain, that in reality 
it has a most decided influence on the un- 
derstanding of many a Christian; and in 
this way, the creed which exists in his mind, 
instead of being a fair transcript of the New 
Testament, is the result of a compromise 
which has been made between its authori- 



SUPREME AUTHORITY OF REVELATION. 



[CHAP. 



tative decisions and the speculations of his 
own fancy. 

What is the reason why there is so much 
more unanimity among critics and gram- 
marians about the sense of any ancient 
author, than about the sense of the New 
Testament ? Because the one is made purely 
a question of criticism : the other has been 
complicated with the uncertain fancies of a 
daring and presumptuous theology. Could 
we only dismiss these fancies, sit down like 
a school -boy to his task, and look upon the 
study of divinity as a mere work of transla- 
tion, then we would expect the same una- 
nimity among Christians that we meet with 
among scholars and literati, about the sys- 
tem of Epicurus or the philosophy of Aris- 
totle. But here lies the distinction between 
the two cases. When we make out, by a 
critical examination of the Greek of Aris- 
totle, that such was his meaning, and such 
his philosophy, the result carries no autho- 
rity with it, and our mind retains the con- 
genial liberty of its own speculations. But 
if we make out by a critical examination of 
the Greek of St. Paul, that such is the theo- 
logy of the New Testament, we are bound 
to submit to this theology ; and our minds 
must surrender every opinion, however dear 
to it. It is quite in vain to talk of the mys- 
teriousness of the subject, as being the cause 
of the want of unanimity among Christians. 
It may be mysterious, in reference to our 
former conceptions. It may be mysterious 
in the utter impossibility of reconciling it 
with our own assumed fancies and self- 
formed principles. It may be mysterious 
in the difficulty which we feel in compre- 
hending the manner of the doctrine, when 
we ought to be satisfied with the authorita- 
tive revelation which has been made to us 
of its existence and its truth. But if we 
could only abandon all our former concep- 
tions, if we felt that our business was to 
submit to the oracles of God, and that we 
are not called upon to effect a reconciliation 
between a revealed doctrine of the Bible, 
and an assumed or excogitated principle of 
our own ; — then we are satisfied, that we 
would find the language of the Testament 
to have as much clear, and precise, and di- 
dactic simplicity, as the language of any 
sage or philosopher that has come down 
to us. 

Could we only get it reduced to a mere 
question of language, we should look, at no 
distant period, for the establishment of a 
pure and unanimous Christianity in the 
world. But, no. While the mind and the 
meaning of any philosopher is collected 
from his words, and these words tried, as 
to their import and significancy, upon the 
appropriate principles of criticism, the mind 
and the meaning of the Spirit of God is not 
collected upon the same pure and compe- 
tent principles of investigation. In order | 



to know the mind of the Spirit, the commu- 
nications of the Spirit, and the expression 
of these communications in written lan- 
guage, should be consulted. These are the 
only data upon which the inquiry should 
be instituted. But, no. Instead of learning 
the designs and character of the Almighty 
from his own mouth, we sit in judgment 
upon them, and make our conjecture of 
what they should be, take the precedency 
of his revelation of what they are. We do 
him the same injustice that we do to an ac- 
quaintance, whose proceedings and whose 
intentions we venture to pronounce upon, 
while we refuse him a hearing, or turn 
away from the letter in which he explains 
himself. No wonder, then, at the want of 
unanimity among Christians, so long as the 
question of " What thinkest thou ?" is made 
the principle of their creed, and, for the safe 
guidance of criticism, they have committed 
themselves to the endless caprices of the hu- 
man intellect. Let the principle of "what 
thinkest thou" be exploded, and that of 
"what readest thou" be substituted in its 
place. Let us take our lesson as the Al- 
mighty places it before us, and, instead of 
being the judge of his conduct, be satisfied 
with the safer and humbler office of being 
the interpreter of his language. 

Now this principle is not exclusively ap- 
plicable to the learned. The great bulk of 
Christians have no access to the Bible in its 
original languages; but they have access to 
the common translation, and they may be 
satisfied by the concurrent testimony of the 
learned among the different sectaries of this 
country, that the translation is a good one. 
We do not confine the principle to critics 
and translators; we press it upon all. We 
call upon them not to form their divinity by 
independent thinking, but to receive it by 
obedient reading ; to take the words as they 
stand, and submit to the plain English of 
the Scriptures which lie before them. It is 
the office of a translator to give a faithful 
representation of the original. Now that 
this faithful representation has been given, 
it is our part to peruse it with care, and to 
take a fair and a faithful impression of it. 
It is our part to purify our understanding 
of all its previous conceptions. We must 
bring a free and unoccupied mind to the 
exercise. It must not be the pride or the 
obstinacy of self-formed opinions, or the 
haughty independence of him who thinks 
he has reached the manhood of his under- 
standing. We must bring with us the do- 
cility of a child, if we want to gain the 
kingdom of heaven. It must not be a par- 
tial, but an entire and unexcepted obedience. 
There must be no garbling of that which is 
entire, no darkening of that which is lumi- 
nous, no softening down of that which is 
authoritative or severe. The Bible will allow 
I of no compromise. It professes to be the 



X,] 



SUPREME AUTHORITY Of REVELATION. 



61 



directory of our faith, and claims a total 
ascendency over the souls and the under- 
standings of men. It will enter into no 
composition with us, or our natural princi- 
ples. It challenges the whole mind as its 
due, and it appeals to the truth of heaven 
for the high authority of its sanctions. 
" Whosoever addeth to, or taketh from, the 
words of this book, is accursed," is the abso- 
lute language in which it delivers itself. 
This brings us to its terms. There is no 
way of escaping after this. We must bring 
every thought into the captivity of its obe- 
dience, and as closely as ever lawyer stuck 
to his document or his extract, must we 
abide by the rule and the doctrine which 
this authentic memorial of God sets be- 
fore us. 

Now we hazard the assertion, that with 
a number of professing Christians, there is 
not this unexcepted submission of the un- 
derstanding to the authority of the Bible; 
and that the authority of the Bible is often 
modified, and in some cases superseded by 
the authority of other principles. One of 
these principles is the reason of the thing. 
We do not know if this principle would be 
at all felt or appealed to by the earliest 
Christians. It may perhaps by the dispu- 
tations or the philosophising among con- 
verted Jews and Greeks, but not certainly 
by those of whom Paul said, that "not 
many wise men after the flesh, not many 
mighty, not many noble, were called." 
They turned from dumb idols to serve the 
living and the true God. There was nothing 
in their antecedent theology which they 
could have any respect for : nothing which 
they could confront, or bring into compe- 
tition with the doctrines of the New Testa- 
ment. In those days, the truth as it is in 
Jesus came to the mind of its disciples, re- 
commended by its novelty, by its grandeur, 
by the power and recency of its evidences, 
and above all by its vast and evident supe- 
riority over the fooleries of a degrading Pa- 
ganism. It does not occur to us, that men 
in these circumstances would ever think of 
sitting in judgment over the mysteries of 
that sublime faith which had charmed them 
into an abandonment of their earlier reli- 
gion. It rather strikes us, that they would 
receive them passively ; that, like scholars 
who had all to learn, they would take their 
lesson as they found it ; that the information 
of their teachers would be enough for them ; 
and that the restless tendency of the human 
m ind to speculation, would for a time find am- 
ple enjoyment in the rich and splendid dis- 
coveries, which broke like a flood of light 
upon the world. But we are in different cir- 
cumstances. To us, these discoveries, rich 
and splendid as they are, have lost the fresh- 
ness of novelty. The sun of righteousness, 
like the sun of the firmament, has become fa- 
miliarized to us by possession. In a few ages, 



the human mind deserted its guidance, and 
rambled as much as ever in quest of new 
speculations. It is true, that they took a 
juster and loftier flight since the days of 
Heathenism. But it was only because they 
walked in the light of revelation. They 
borrowed of the New Testament without 
acknowledgment, and took its beauties and 
its truths to deck their own wretched fan- 
cies and self-constituted systems. In the 
process of time, the delusion multiplied and 
extended. Schools were formed, and the 
ways of the Divinity were as confidently 
theorized upon, as the processes of chemis- 
try, or the economy of the heavens. Univer- 
sities were endowed, and natural theology 
took its place in the circle of the sciences. 
Folios were written, and the respected lu- 
minaries of a former age poured their a 
priori and their a posteriori demonstra- 
tions on the world. Taste, and sentiment, 
and imagination, grew apace; and every 
raw untutored principle which poetry could 
clothe in prettiness, or over which the band 
of genius could throw the graces of sensi- 
bility and elegance, was erected into a prin- 
ciple of the divine government, and made 
to preside over the counsels of the Deity. 
In the mean time, the Bible which ought to 
supersede all, was itself superseded. It was 
quite in vain to say that it w T as the only 
authentic record of an actual embassy which 
God had sent into the world. It was quite 
in vain to plead its testimonies, its miracles,, 
and the unquestionable fulfilment of its pro- 
phecies. These mighty claims must lie 
over, and be suspended, till we have settled 
— what? the reasonableness of its doctrines. 
We must bring the theology of God's am- 
bassador to the bar of our self-formed the- 
ology. The Bible, instead of being admitted 
as the directory of our faith upon its exter- 
nal evidences, must be tried upon the merits 
of the work itself; and if our verdict be 
favorable, it must be brought in, not as a 
help to our ignorance, but as a corollary to 
our demonstrations. But is this ever done? 
Yes ! by Dr. Samuel Clarke, and a whole 
host of followers and admirers. Their first 
step in the process of theological study, is 
to furnish their minds with the principles 
of natural theology. Christianity, before 
its external proofs are looked at or listened 
to, must be brought under the tribunal of 
these principles. All the difficulties which 
attach to the reason of the thing, or the fit- 
ness of the doctrines, must be formally dis- 
cussed, and satisfactorily got over. A voice 
was heard from heaven, saying of Jesus 
Christ, "This is my beloved Son, hear ye 
him." The men of Galilee saw him ascend 
from the dead to the heaven which he now 
occupies. The men of Galilee gave their 
testimony; and it is a testimony which 
stood the fiery trial of persecution in a 
former age, and of sophistry in this. And 



62 



SUPREME AUTHORITY OF REVELATION. 



[chap. 



yet, instead of hearing Jesus Christ as dis- 
ciples, they sit in authority over him as 
judges. Instead of forming their divinity 
after the Bible, they try the Bible by their 
antecedent divinity; and this book, with all 
its mighty train of evidences, must drivel 
in their anti-chambers, till they have pro- 
nounced sentence of admission, when they 
have got its doctrines to agree with their 
own airy and unsubstantial speculations. 

We do not condemn the exercise of rea- 
son in matters of theology. It is the part 
of reason to form its conclusions, when it 
has data and evidences before it. But it is 
equally the part of reason to abstain from 
its conclusions, when these evidences are 
wanting. Reason can judge of the external 
evidences for Christianity, because it can 
discern the merits of human testimony : and 
it can perceive the truth or the falsehood 
of such obvious credentials as the per- 
formance of a miracle, or the fulfilment of 
a prophecy. But reason is not entitled to 
sit in judgment over those internal evi- 
dences, which many a presumptuous the- 
ologian has attempted to derive from the 
reason of the thing, or from the agreement 
of the doctrine with the fancied character 
and attributes of the Deity. One of the most 
useful exercises of reason, is to ascertain its 
limits, and to keep within them ; to abandon 
the fields of conjecture, and to restrain itself 
within that safe and certain barrier which 
forms the boundary of human experience. 
However humiliating you may conceive it, 
it is this which lies at the bottom of Lord 
Bacon's philosophy, and it is to this that 
modern science is indebted for all her so- 
lidity, and all her triumphs. Why does 
philosophy flourish in our days? Because 
her votaries have learned to abandon their 
own creative speculations, and to submit to 
evidence, let her conclusions be as painful 
and as unpalatable as they will. Now all 
that we want, is to carry the same lesson 
and the same principle into theology. Our 
business is not to guess, but to learn. After 
we have established Christianity to be an 
authentic message from God upon those 
historical grounds on which the reason and 
experience of man entitle him to form his 
conclusions, — nothing remains for us, but 
an unconditional surrender of the mind to 
the subject of the message. We have a 
right to sit in judgment over the credentials 
of heaven's ambassador, but we have no 
right to sit in judgment over the informa- 
tion he gives us. We have no right either 
to refuse or to modify that information, till 
we have accommodated it to our previous 
conceptions. 

It is very true that if the truths which he 
delivered lay within the field of human ob- 
servation, he brings himself under the tri- 
bunal of our antecedent knowledge. Were 
he to tell us, that the bodies of the planetary 



system moved in orbits which are purelv 
circular, we would oppose to him the ob- 
servations and measurements of astronomy. 
Were he to tell us, that in winter the sun 
never shone, and that in summer no cloud 
ever darkened the brilliancy of his career, 
we would oppose to him the certain re- 
membrances, both of ourselves and of our 
whole neighbourhood. Were he to tell us, 
that we were perfect men, because we were 
free from passion, and loved our neighbours 
as ourselves, we should oppose to him the 
history of our own lives, and the deeply- 
seated consciousness of our own infirmities. 
On all these subjects, we can confront him, 
but when he brings truth from a quarter 
which no human eye ever explored ; when 
he tells us the mind of the Deity, and brings 
before us the counsels of that invisible Be- 
ing, whose arm is abroad upon all worlds, 
and whose views reach to eternity, he is 
beyond the ken of eye or of telescope, and 
we must submit to him. We have no more 
right to sit in judgment over his informa- 
tion, than we have to sit in judgment over 
the information of any other visitor, who 
lights upon our planet, from some distant 
and unknown part of the universe, and tells 
us what worlds roll in those remote tracts 
which are beyond the limits of our astrono- 
my, and how the Divinity peoples them with 
wonders. Any previous conceptions of ours 
are of no more value than the fooleries of 
an infant ; and should we offer to resist or 
to modify upon the strength of these con- 
ceptions, we would be as unsound and as 
unphilosophical as ever schoolman was with 
his categories, or Cartesian with his whirl- 
pools of ether. 

Let us go back to the first Christians of 
the Gentile world. They turned from dumb 
idols to serve the living and the true God. 
They made a simple and entire transition 
from a state as bad, if not worse, than that 
of entire ignorance, to the Christianity of 
the New Testament. Their previous con- 
ceptions instead of helping them, behoved 
to be utterly abandoned ; nor was there that 
intermediate step which so many of us 
think to be necessary, and which we dignify 
with the name of the rational theology of 
nature. In those days this rational theology 
was unheard of; nor have we the slightest 
reason to believe that they were initiated 
into its doctrines, before they were looked 
upon as fit to be taught the peculiarities of 
the Gospel. They were translated at once 
from the absurdities of Paganism to that 
Christianity which has come down to us 
in the records of the evangelical history, 
and the epistles which their teachers ad- 
dressed to them. They saw the miracles; 
they acquiesced in them, as satisfying cre- 
dentials of an inspired teacher ; they took 
the whole of their religion from his mouth ; 
their faith came by hearing, and hearing 



X.] 



SUPREME AUTHORITY OF REVELATION. 



63 



by the words of a divine messenger. This 
was their process, and it ought to be ours. 
We do not see the miracles, but we see their 
reality through the medium of that clear 
and unsuspicious testimony which has been 
handed down to us. We should admit them 
as the credentials of an embassy from God. 
We should take the whole of our religion 
from the records of this embassy; and, re- 
nouncing the idolatry of our own self-form- 
ed conceptions, we should repair to that 
word which was spoken to them that heard 
it, and transmitted to us by the instrumen- 
tality of written language. The question 
with them was, What hearest thou ? The 
question with us is, What readest thou? 
They had their idols, and they turned away 
from them. We have our fancies, and we 
contend, that, in the face of an authoritative 
revelation from heaven it is as glaring idola- 
try in us to adhere to them, as it would be 
were they spread out upon canvass, or 
chiselled into material form by the hands 
of a statuary. 

In the popular religions of antiquity, we 
see scarcely the vestige of a resemblance to 
that academical theism which is delivered 
in our schools, and figures away in the 
speculations of our moralists. The process 
of conversion among the first Christians 
was a very simple one. It consisted of an 
utter abandonment of their heathenism, and 
an entire submission to those new truths 
which came to them through the revelation 
of the Gospel, and through it only. It was 
the pure theology of Christ and of his apos- 
tles. That theology which struts in fancied 
demonstration from a professor's chair, 
formed no part of it. They listened as if 
they had all to learn : we listen as if it was 
our office to judge, and to give the message of 
God its due place and subordination among 
the principles which we had previously 
established. Now these principles were ut- 
terly unknown at the first publication of 
Christianity. The Galatians, and Corin- 
thians, and Thessalonians, and Philippians, 
had no conception of them. And yet, will 
any man say, that either Paul himself, or 
those who lived under his immediate tui- 
tion, had not enough to make them accom- 
plished Christians, or that they fell short of 
our enlightened selves, in the wisdom which 
prepares for eternity, because they wanted 
our rational theology as a stepping-stone 
to that knowledge which came, in pure and 
immediate revelation, from the Son of God? 
The Gospel was enough for them, and it 
should be enough for us also. Even'- natu- 
ral or assumed principle, which offers to 
abridge its supremacy, or even so much as 
to share with it in authority and direction, 
should be instantly discarded. Every opi- 
nion in religion should be reduced to the 
question of, What readest thou ? and the 
Bible be acquiesced in, and submitted to, as 



the alone directory of our faith, where we 
can get the whole will of God for the sal- 
vation of man. 

But is not this an enlightened age? and, 
since the days of the Gospel, has not the 
wisdom of two thousand years accumulated 
upon the present generation ? has not sci- 
ence been enriched by discovery? and is 
not theology one of the sciences ? Are the 
men of this advanced period to be restrained 
from the high exercise of their powers? 
and, because the men of a remote and bar- 
barous antiquity lisped and drivelled in the 
infancy of their acquirements, is that any 
reason why we should be restricted like so- 
many school-boys to the lesson that is set 
before us ? It is all true that this is a very 
enlightened age; but on what field has it 
acquired so flattering a distinction? On the 
field of experiment. The human mind 
owes all its progress to the confinement of 
its efforts within the safe and certain limits 
of observation, and to the severe restraint 
which it has imposed upon its speculative 
tendencies. Go beyond these limits, and 
the human mind has not advanced a single 
inch by its own independent exercises. All 
the philosophy which has been reared by 
the labour of successive ages, is the philoso- 
phy of facts reduced to general laws, or 
brought under a general description from 
observed points of resemblance. A proud 
and wonderful fabric we do allow; but we 
throw away the very instrument by which 
it was built, the moment that we cease to ob- 
serve, and begin to theorise and excogitate. 
Tell us a single discovery which has thrown 
a particle of light on the details of the di- 
vine administration. Tell us a single truth 
in the whole field of experimental science, 
which can bring us to the moral govern- 
ment of the Almighty by any other road 
than his own revelation. 

Astronomy has taken millions of suns 
and of systems within its ample domain; 
but the ways of God to man stand at a dis- 
tance as inaccessible as ever; nor has it 
shed so much as a glimmering over the 
counsels of that mighty and invisible Being, 
who sits in high authority over all worlds. 
The boasted dfscoveries of modern science 
are all confined to that field, within which 
the senses of man can expatiate. The mo- 
ment we go beyond this field, they cease to 
be discoveries, and are the mere specula- 
tions of the fancy. The discoveries of mod- 
ern science have, in fact, imparted a new 
energy to the sentiment in question. They 
all serve to exalt the Deity, but they do not 
contribute a single iota to the explanation 
of his purposes. They make him greater, 
but they do not make him more compre- 
hensible. He is more shrouded in mystery 
than ever. It is not himself whom we see, 
it is his workmanship ; and every new ad- 
dition to its grandeur or to its variety, 



SUPREME AUTHORITY OF REVELATION. 



[chap. 



which philosophy opens to our contempla- 
tion, throws our understanding at a greater 
distance than before, from the mind and 
conception of the sublime Architect. In- 
stead of the God of a single world, we now 
see him presiding in all the majesty of his 
high attributes, over a mighty range of in- 
numerable systems. To our little eye he 
is wrapt in more awful mysteriousness, and 
every new glimpse which astronomy gives 
us of the universe, magnifies to the appre- 
hension of our mind, that impassable bar- 
rier which stands between the counsels of 
its Sovereign, and those fugitive beings 
who strut their evanescent hour in the 
humblest of its mansions. If this invisible 
Being would only break that mysterious si- 
lence in which he has wrapt himself, we 
feel that a single word from his mouth, 
would be worth a world of darkling specu- 
lations. Every new triumph which the 
mind of man achieves in the field of dis- 
covery, binds us more firmly to our Bible ; 
and by the very proportion in which philo- 
sophy multiplies the wonders of God, do we 
prize that book, on which the evidence of 
history has stamped the character of his au- 
thentic communication. 

The course of the moon in the heavens 
has exercised astronomers for a long se- 
ries of ages, and now that they are able 
to assign all the irregularities of its period, 
it may be counted one of the most signal 
triumphs of the modern philosophy. 

The question lay within the limits of the 
field of observation. It was accessible to 
measurement, and, upon the sure principles 
of calculation, men of science have brought 
forward the confident solution of a problem, 
the most difficult and trying that ever was 
submitted to the human intellect. But let 
it never be forgotten, that those very max- 
ims of philosophy which guided them so 
surely and so triumphantly within the field 
of observation, also restrained them from 
stepping beyond it ; and though none were 
more confident than they, whenever they 
had evidence and experiment to enlighten 
them, yet none were more scrupulous in 
abstaining to pronounce upon any subject, 
where evidence and experiment were want- 
ing. Let us suppose that one of their num- 
ber, flushed with the triumph of success, 
passed on from the work of calculating the 
periods of the moon, to theorise upon its 
chemical constitution. The former ques- 
tion lies within the field of observation, the 
other is most thoroughly beyond it; and 
there is not a man, whose mind is disciplin- 
ed to the rigour and sobriety of modern 
science, that would not look upon the theo- 
ry with the same contempt, as if it were the 
dream of a poet, or the amusement of a 
schoolboy. We have heard much of the 
moon, and of the volcanoes which blaze 
upon its surface. Let us have incontestible 



evidence, that a falling stone proceeds from 
the eruption of one of those volcanoes, and 
the chemistry of the moon will receive 
more illustration from the analysis of that 
stone, than from all the speculations of all 
the theorists. It brings the question in part 
within the limits observation. It now be- 
comes a fair subject for the exercise of the 
true philosophy. The eye can now see, 
and the hand can now handle it ; and the 
information furnished by the laborious 
drudgery of experimental men, will be re- 
ceived as a truer document, than the theory 
of any philosopher, however ingenious, or 
however splendid. 

At the hazard of being counted fanciful, 
we bring forward the above as a competent 
illustration of the principle which we are 
attempting to establish. We do all homage 
to modern science, nor do we dispute the 
loftiness of its pretensions. But we main- 
tain, that however brilliant its career in 
those tr.acks of philosophy, where it has the 
light of observation to conduct it, the philo- 
sophy of all that lies without the field of 
observation is as obscure and inaccesible as 
ever. We maintain, that to pass from the 
motions of the moon to an unauthorised 
speculation upon the chemistry of its ma- 
terials, is a presumption disowned by phi- 
losophy. We ought to feel, that it would 
be a still more glaring transgression of all 
her maxims, to pass from the brightest 
discovery in her catalogue, to the ways of 
that mysterious Being, whom no eye hath 
seen, and whose mind is capacious as in- 
finity. The splendour and the magnitude 
of what we do know, can never authorise 
us to pronounce upon what we do not 
know; nor can we conceive a transition 
more violent or more unwarrantable, than 
to pass fr@m the truths of natural sience to 
a speculation on the details of God's admin- 
istration, or on the economy of his moral 
government. We hear much of revelations 
from heaven. Let any one of these bear the 
evidence of an actual communication, from 
God himself, and all the reasonings of all 
theologians must vanish, and give place to 
the substance of this communication. In- 
stead of theorising upon the nature and 
properties of that divine light which irradi- 
ates the throne of God, and exists at so im- 
measurable a distance from our faculties, let 
us point our eyes to that emanation, which 
has actually come down to us. Instead of 
theorising upon the counsels of the divine 
mind, let us go to that volume which light- 
ed upon our world nearly two thousand 
years ago, and which bears the most au- 
thentic evidence, that it is the depository 
of part of these counsels. Let us apply the 
proper instrument to this examination. Let ;» 
us never conceive it to be a work of specu- 
lation or fancy. It is a pure work of gram- 
matical analysis. It is an unmixed question 



SUPREME AUTHORITY OF REVELATION. 



65 



of language. The commentator who opens 
this book with the one hand, and carries his 
system in the other, has nothing to do with it. 
We admit of no other instrument than the 
vocabulary and the lexicon. The man whom 
we look to is the scripture critic, who can ap- 
peal to his authorities for the import and sig- 
nificancy of phrases, and whatever be the 
strict result of his patience and profound phi- 
lology, we submit to it. We call upon every 
enlightened disciple of Lord Bacon to ap- 
prove the steps of this process, and to ac- 
knowledge, that the same habits of philoso- 
phising to which science is indebted for all 
her elevation in these latter days, will lead 
us to cast down all our lofty imaginations, 
and bring into captivity every thought to 
the obedience of Christ. 

But something more remains to be done. 
The mind may have discernment enough 
to acquiesce in the speculative justness of a 
principle; but it may not have vigour or 
consistency enough to put it into execution. 
Lord Bacon pointed out the method of true 
philosophising ; yet, in practice, he abandon- 
ed it, and his own physical investigations 
may be ranked among the most effectual 
specimens of that rash and unfounded theo- 
rising, which his own principles have ban- 
ished from the schools of philosophy. Sir 
Isaac Newton completed in his own per- 
son the character of the true philosopher. 
He not only saw the general principle, but 
he obeyed it. He both betook himself to 
the drudgery of observation, and he endured 
the pain which every mind must suffer in 
I 



the act of renouncing its old habits of con- 
ception. We call upon our readers to have 
manhood and philosophy enough to make 
a similar sacrifice. It is not enough that 
the Bible be acknowledged as the only au- 
thentic source of information respecting the 
details of that moral economy, which the 
Supreme Being has instituted for the go- 
vernment of the intelligent beings who oc- 
cupy this globe. Its authenticity must be 
something more than acknowledged. It 
must be felt, and, in act and obedience, sub- 
mitted to. Let us put them to the test. 
" Verily I say unto you," says our Saviour, 
"unless a man shall be born again, he shall 
not enter into the kingdom of God." " By 
grace ye are saved through faith, and that 
not of yourselves, it is the gift of God." 
"Justified freely by his grace through the 
redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom 
God has set forth to be a propitiation 
through faith in his blood." We need not 
multiply quotations ; but if there be any re- 
pugnance to the obvious truths which we 
have announced to the reader in the lan- 
guage of the Bible, his mind is not yet tu- 
tored to the philosophy of the subject. It 
may be in the way, but the final result is 
not yet arrived at. It is still a slave to the 
elegance or the plausibility of its old specu- 
lations ; and though it admits the principle, 
that every previous opinion must give way 
to the supreme authority of an actual com- 
munication from God, it wants consistency 
and hardihood to carry the principle into 
accomplishment. 



DISCOURSES 



ON 

THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION, 

VIEWED IN CONNEXION WITH 



THE MODERN ASTRONOMY* 



PREFACE. 

The astronomical objection against the truth of the Gospel does not occupy a 
very prominent place in any of our Treatises of Infidelity. It is often, however, 
met with in conversation — and we have known it to be the cause of serious 
perplexity and alarm in minds anxious for the solid establishment of their re- 
ligious faith. " 

There is an imposing splendour in the science of astronomy ; and it is not to 
be wondered at, if the light it throws, or appears to throw, over other tracks of 
speculation than those which are properly its own, should at times dazzle and 
mislead an inquirer. On this account we think it were a service to what we 
deem a true and a righteous cause, could we succeed in dissipating this illusion ; 
and in stripping Infidelity of those pretensions to enlargement, and to a certain 
air of philosophical greatness, by which it has often become so destructively 
alluring to the young, and the ardent, and the ambitious. 

In my first Discourse, I have attempted a sketch of the Modern Astronomy — 
nor have I wished to throw any disguise over that comparative littleness which 
belongs to our planet, and which gives to the argument of Freethinkers all its 
plausibility. 

This argument involves in it an assertion and an inference. The assertion is, 
that Christianity is a religion which professes to be designed for the single benefit 
of our world ; and the inference is, that God cannot be the author of this religion, 
for he would not lavish on so insignificant a field, such peculiar and such dis- 
tinguishing attentions as are ascribed to him in the Old and New Testament. 

Christianity makes no such profession. That it is designed for the single 
benefit of our world, is altogether a presumption of the Infidel himself — and 
feeling that this is not the only example of temerity which can be charged on 
the enemies of our faith, I have allotted my second Discourse to the attempt of de- 
monstrating the utter repugnance of such a spirit with the cautious and enlight- 
ened philosophy of modern times. 

In the course of this Sermon I have offered a tribute of acknowledgment tc 
the theology of Sir Isaac Newton ; and in such terras, as if not farther explained, 
may be liable to misconstruction. The grand circumstance of applause in the 
character of this great man, is, that unseduced by all the magnificence of his own 
discoveries, he had a solidity of mind which could resist their fascination, and 
keep him in steady attachment to that book whose general evidences stamped 
upon it the impress of a real communication from heaven. This was the sole 
attribute of his theology which I had in my eye when I presumed to eulogize it. 



PREFACE. 



67 



I do not think, that, amid the distraction and the engrossment of his other pur- 
suits, he has at all times succeeded in his interpretation of the book ; else he 
would never, in my apprehension, have abetted the leading doctrine of a sect,, or 
a system, which has now nearly dwindled away from public observation. 

in my third Discourse I am silent as to the assertion and attempt to combat the 
inference that is founded on it. I insist, that upon all the analogies of nature and 
of providence, we can lay no limit on the condescension of God, or on the multi- 
plicity of his regards even to the very humblest departments of creation ; and that 
it is not for us, who see the evidences of divine wisdom and care spread in such 
exhaustless profusion around, to say, that the Deity would not lavish all the wealth 
of his wondrous attributes on the salvation even of our solitary species. 

At this point of the argument I trust that the intelligent reader may be enabled 
to perceive in the adversaries of the gospel, a twofold dereliction from the maxims 
of the Baconian philosophy ; that, in the first instance, the assertion which forms the 
groundwork of their argument, is gratuitously fetched out of an unknown region 
where they are utterly abandoned by the light of experience ; and that, in the se- 
cond instance, the inference they urge from it, is in the face of manifold and unde- 
niable truths, all lying within the safe and accessible field of human observation. 

In my subsequent Discourses, I proceed to the informations of the record. 
The infidel objection, drawn from astronomy, may be considered as by this time 
disposed of ; and if we have succeeded in clearing it away, so as to deliver the 
Christian testimony from all discredit upon this ground, then may we submit, on 
the strength of other evidences, to be guided by its information. We shall thus 
learn, that Christianity has a far more extensive bearing on the other orders of 
creation than the infidel is disposed to allow • and whether he will own the 
authority of this information or not, he will at least be forced to admit, that the 
subject matter of the Bible itself is not chargeable with that objection which he 
has attempted to fasten upon it. 

Thus, had my only object been the refutation of the Infidel argument, I might 
have spared the last Discourses of the Volume altogether. But the tracts of 
Scriptural information to which they directed me, I considered as worthy of 
prosecution on their own account — and I do think, that much may be gathered 
from these less observed portions of the field of revelation, to cheer, and to 
elevate, and to guide the believer. 

But, in the management of such a discussion as this, though for a great degree 
of this effect it would require to be conducted in a far higher style than I am 
able to sustain, the taste of the human mind may be regaled, and its understanding 
put into a state of the most agreeable exercise. Now, this is quite distinct from 
the conscience being made to feel the force of a personal application ; nor could 
I either bring this argument to its close in the pulpit, or offer it to the general 
notice of the world, without adverting, in the last Discourse, to a delusion which, 
I fear, is carrying forward thousands, and tens of thousands to an undone eternity. 

I have closed the volume with an Appendix of Scriptural authorities. I found 
that I could not easily interweave them in the texture of the Work, and have, 
therefore, thought fit to present them in a separate form. I look for a twofold 
benefit from this exhibition — first, on those more general readers, who are 
ignorant of the Scriptures, and of the riches and variety which abound in them — 
and, secondly, on those narrow and intolerant professors, who take an alarm at the 
very sound and semblance of philosophy, and feel as if there was an utter irre- 
concileable antipathy between its lessons on the one hand, and the soundness and 
piety of the Bible on the other. It were well, I conceive, for our cause, that the 
latter could become a little more indulgent on this subject ; that they gave up a 
portion of those ancient and hereditary prepossessions, which go so far to cramp 
and to enthral them ; that they would suffer theology to take that wide range of 
argument and of illustration which belongs to her ; and that less, sensitively 
jealous of any desecration being brought upon the Sabbath, or the pulpit, they 
would suffer her freely to announce all those truths, which either serve to protect 
Christianity from the contempt of science, or to protect the teachers of Chris- 



68 



A SKETCH OF THE MODERN ASTRONOMY. 



[DISC. 



tianity from those invasions which are practised both on the sacredness of. the 
office, and on the solitudes of its devotional and intellectual labours. 

I shall only add, for the information of readers at a distance, that these / 
Discourses were chiefly delivered on the occasion of the week-day sermon that 
is preached in rotation by the Ministers of Glasgow. 



DISCOURSE I. 

A Sketch of the Modern Astronomy. 

" When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast or- 
dained 5 What is man, that thou art mindful of him ? and the son of man, that thou visitest him." 

Psalm viii. 3, 4. 



In the reasonings of the Apostle Paul, 
we cannot fail to observe how studiously 
he accommodates his arguments to the pur- 
suits, or principles, or prejudices of the 
people whom he was addressing. He often 
made a favourite opinion of their own the 
starting point of his explanation ; and edu- 
cing a dexterous but irresistible train of 
argument from some principle upon which 
each of the parties had a common under- 
standing, did he force them out of all their 
opposition, by a weapon of their own choos- 
ing — nor did he scruple to avail himself of 
a Jewish peculiarity, or a heathen super- 
stition, or a quotation from Greek poetry, 
by which he might gain the attention of 
those whom he labored to convince, and 
by the skilful application of which he might 
" shut them up unto the faith." 

Now, when Paul was thus addressing 
one class of an assembly or congregation, 
another class might, for the time, have 
been shut out of all direct benefit and ap- 
plication from his arguments. When he 
wrote an Epistle to a mixed assembly of 
Christianised Jews and Gentiles, he had 
often to direct such a process of argument 
to the former, as the latter would neither 
require nor comprehend. Now, what should 
have been the conduct of the Gentiles at 
the reading of that part of the Epistle which 
bore almost an exclusive reference to the 
Jews ? Should it be impatience at the hearing 
of something for which they had no relish or 
understanding ? Should it be a fretful dis- 
appointment, because every thing that was 
said, was not said for their edification? 
Should it be angry discontent with the 
Apostle, because, leaving them in the dark, 
he had brought forward nothing for them, 
through the whole extent of so many suc- 
cessive chapters? Some of them may have 
felt in this way ; but surely it would have 
been vastly more Christian to have sat with 
meek and unfeigned patience, and to have 
rejoiced that the great Apostle had under- 
taken the management of those obstinate 



prejudices which kept back so many hu- 
man beings from the participation of the 
Gospel. And should Paul have had reason 
to rejoice, that, by the success of his argu- 
ments, he had reconciled one or any num- 
ber of Jews to Christianity, then it was the 
part of these Gentiles, though receiving no 
direct or personal benefit from the argu- 
ments, to have blessed God, and rejoiced 
along with him. 

Conceive that Paul were at this moment 
alive, and zealously engaged in the work 
of pressing the Christian religion on the 
acceptance of the various classes of society. 
Should he not still have acted on the prin- 
ciple of being all things to all men? Should 
he not have accommodated his discussion 
to the prevailing taste, and literature, and 
philosophy of the times? Should he not 
have closed with the people, whom he was 
addressing, on some favourite principle of 
their own ; and, in the prosecution of this 
principle, might he not have got completely 
beyond the comprehension of a numerous 
class of zealous, humble, and devoted Chris- 
tians? Now, the question is not, how these 
would conduct themselves in such circum- 
stances ? but how should they do it ? Would 
it be right in them to sit with impatience, 
because the argument of the apostles contain- 
ed in it nothing in the way of comfort or edi- 
fication to themselves ? Should not the be- 
nevolence of the Gospel give a different 
direction to their feelings? And, instead 
of that narrow, exclusive, and monopoliz- 
ing spirit, which I fear is too characteristic 
of the more declared professors of the truth 
as it is in Jesus, ought they not to be pa- 
tient, and to rejoice ; when to philosophers, 
and to men of literary accomplishment, 
and to those who have the direction of the 
public taste among the upper walks of so- 
ciety, such arguments are addressed as may 
bring home to their acceptance also, " the 
words of this life?" It is under the im- 
pulse of these considerations, that I have, 
with some hesitation, prevailed upon my 



A SKETCH OF THE MODERN ASTRONOMY. 



69 



self to attempt an argument which I think 
fitted to soften and subdue those prejudices 
•which lie at the bottom of what may be 
called the infidelity of natural science ; if 
possible to bring over to the humility of the 
Gospel, those who expatiate with delight 
on the wonders and sublimities of creation ; 
and to convince them that a loftier wisdom 
still than that even of their high and hon- 
ourable acquirements, is the wisdom of him 
who is resolved to know nothing but Jesus 
Christ, and him crucified. 

It is truly a most Christian exercise to 
extract a sentiment of piety from the works 
and the appearances of nature. It has the 
authority of the Sacred Writers upon its 
side, and even our Saviour himself gives it 
the weight and the solemnity of his exam- 
ple. " Behold the lilies of the field ; they 
toil not, neither do they spin, yet your 
heavenly Father careth for them." He ex- 
patiates on the beauty of a single flower, 
and draws from it the delightful argument 
of confidence in God. He gives us to see 
that taste may be combined with piety, and 
that the same heart may be occupied with 
all that is serious in the contemplations of 
religion, and be at the same time alive to 
the charms and the loveliness of nature. 

The Psalmist takes a still loftier flight. 
He leaves the world, and lifts his imagina- 
tion to that mighty expanse which spreads 
above it and around it. He wings his way 
through space, and wanders in thought over 
its immeasurable regions. Instead of a dark 
and unpeopled solitude, he sees it crowded 
with splendour, and filled with the energy of 
the Divine presence. Creation rises in its 
immensity before him, and the world, with 
all which it inherits, shrinks into littleness 
at a contemplation so vast and so overpow- 
ering. He wonders that he is not over- 
looked amid the grandeur and the variety 
which are on every side of him, and pass- 
ing upward from the majesty of nature to 
the majesty of nature's Architect, he ex- 
claims, " What is man that thou art mind- 
ful of him, or the son of man that thou 
shouldest deign to visit him?" 

It is not for us to say, whether inspira- 
tion revealed to the Psalmist the wonders 

the modern astronomy. But even though 
he mind be a perfect stranger to the sci- 
ence of these enlightened times, the heavens 
present a great and an elevating spectacle ; 
an immense concave reposing upon the 
circular boundary of the world, and the in- 
numerable lights which are suspended from 
on high, moving with solemn regularity 
along its surface. It seems to have been at 
night that the piety of the Psalmist was 
awakened by this contemplation, when the 
moon and the stars were visible, and not 
when the sun had risen in his strength, 
and thrown a splendour around him, which 
bore down and eclipsed all the lesser glories 



of the firmament. And there is much in 
the scenery of a nocturnal sky, to lift the 
soul to pious contemplation. That moon, 
and these stars, what are they? They are 
detached from the world, and they lift you 
above it. You feel withdrawn from the 
earth, and rise in lofty abstraction above 
this little theatre of human passions and 
human anxieties. The mind abandons it- 
self to reverie, and is transferred, in the ec- 
stacy of its thoughts, to distant and unexplor- 
ed regions. It sees nature in the simplicity of 
her great elements, and it sees the God of 
nature invested with the high attributes of 
wisdom and majesty. 

But what can these lights be ? The cu- 
riosity of the human mind is insatiable, 
and the mechanism of these wonderful 
heavens has, in all ages, been its subject 
and its employment. It has been reserved 
for these latter times, to resolve this great 
and interesting question. The sublimest 
powers of philosophy have been called to 
the exercise, and astronomy may now be 
looked upon as the most certain and best 
established of the sciences. 

We all know that every visible object 
appears less in magnitude as it recedes 
from the eye. The lofty vessel as it re- 
tires from the coast, shrinks into littleness, 
and at last appears in the form of a small 
speck on the verge of the horizon. The 
eagle with its expanded wings, is a noble 
object ; but when it takes its flight into the 
upper regions of the air, it becomes less to 
the eye, and is seen like a dark spot upon 
the vault of heaven. The same is true of 
all magnitude. The heavenly bodies appear 
small to the eye of an inhabitant of this 
earth, only from the immensity of their 
distance. When we talk of hundreds of 
millions of miles, it is not to be listened to 
as incredible. For remember that we are' 
talking of those bodies which are scattered 
over the immensity of space, and that space 
knows no termination. The conception is 
great and difficult, but the truth is unques- 
tionable. By a process of measurement 
which it is unnecessary at present to ex- 
plain, we have ascertained first the distance, 
and then the magnitude of some of those 
bodies which roll in the firmament ; that 
the sun, which presents itself to the eye 
under so diminutive a form, is really a globe, 
exceeding, by many thousands of times, the 
dimensions of the earth which we inhabit ; 
that the moon itself has the magnitude of 
a world ; and that even a few of those stars, 
which appear like so many lucid points to 
the unassisted eye of the observer, expand 
into large circles upon the application of 
the telescope, and are some of them much 
larger than the ball which we tread upon, 
and to which we proudly apply the denom- 
ination of the universe. 

Now, what is the fair and obvious pre- 



70 A SKETCH OF THE MODERN ASTRONOMY. 



sumption? The world in which we live, 
is a round ball of a determined magnitude, 
and occupies its own place in the firma- 
ment. But when we explore the unlimited 
tracts of that space, which is every where 
around us, we meet with other balls of equal 
or superior magnitude, and from which our 
earth would either be invisible, or appear as 
small as any of those twinkling stars which 
are seen on the canopy of heaven. Why 
then suppose that this little spot, little at 
least in the immensity which surrounds it, 
should be the exclusive abode of life and of 
intelligence? What reason to think that 
those mightier globes which roll in other 
parts of creation, and which we have discov- 
ered to be worlds in magnitude, are not also 
worlds in use and in dignity ? Why should 
we think that the great Architect of nature, 
supreme in wisdom as he is in power, 
would call these stately mansions into ex- 
istence, and leave them unoccupied ? When 
we cast our eye over the broad sea, and look 
at the country on the other side, we see no- 
thing but the blue land stretching obscurely 
over the distant horizon. We are too far 
away to perceive the richness of its scenery, 
or to hear the sound of its population. 
Why not extend this principle to the still 
more distant parts of the universe? What 
though, from this remote point of observa- 
tion, we can see nothing but the naked 
roundness of yon planetary orbs ? Are we 
therefore to say, that they are so many vast 
and unpeopled solitudes; that desolation 
reigns in every part of the universe but 
ours ; that the whole energy of the divine 
attributes is expended on one insignificant 
corner of these mighty works ; and that to 
this earth alone belongs the bloom of vege- 
tation, or the blessedness of life, or the dig- 
nity of rational and immortal existence? 

But this is not all. We have something 
more than the mere magnitude of the 
planets to allege", in favour of the idea that 
they are inhabited. We know that this 
earth turns round upon itself; and we ob- 
serve that all those celestial bodies, which 
are accessible to such an observation, have 
the same movement. We know that the 
earth performs a yearly revolution round 
the sun; and we can detect in all the 
planets which compose our system, a revo- 
lution of the same kind, and under the same 
circumstances. They have the same suc- 
cession of day and night. They have the 
same agreeable vicissitude of the seasons. 
To them, light and darkness succeed each 
other ; and the gaiety of summer is followed 
by the dreariness of winter. To each of 
them the heavens present as varied and 
magnificent a spectacle ; and this earth the 
encompassing of which would require the 
labour of years from one of its puny inhabi- 
tants, is but one of the lesser lights which 
sparkle in their firmament. To them, as well 



[disc. 

as to us, has God divided the light from the 
darkness, and he has called the light day, and 
the darkness he has called night. He has said 
let there be lights in the firmament of their 
heaven, to divide the day from the night: and 
let them be for signs, and for seasons, and 
for days, and for years; and let them be for 
lights in the firmament of heaven, to give 
light upon their earth ; and it was so. And 
God has also made to 'them great lights. 
To all of them he has given the sun to rule 
the day ; and to many of them has he given 
moons to rule the night. To them he has 
made the stars also. And God has set them 
in the firmament of heaven, to give light 
unto their earth ; and to rule over the day, 
and over the night, and to divide the light 
from the darkness; and God has seen that 
it was good. 

In all these greater arrangements of di- 
vine wisdom, we can see that God has done 
the same things for the accommodation of 
the planets that he has done for the earth 
which we inhabit. And shall we say, that 
the resemblance stops here, because we are 
not in a situation to observe it? Shall we 
say, that this scene of magnificence has 
been called into being, merely for the 
amusement of a few astronomers? Shall 
we measure the counsels of heaven by the 
narrow importance of the human faculties? 
or conceive, that silence and solitude reign 
throughout the mighty empire of nature, 
that the greater part of creation is an empty 
parade; and that not a worshipper of the 
Divinity is to be found through the wide 
extent of yon vast and immeasurable re- 
gions ? 

It lends a delightful confirmation to the 
argument, when, from the growing perfec 
tion of our instruments, we can discover a 
new point of resemblance between our 
earth and the other bodies of the planetary 
system. It is now ascertained, not merely 
that all of them have their day and night, 
and that all of them have their vicissitudes 
of seasons, and that some of them have 
their moons to rule their night and allevi- 
ate the darkness of it. We can see of one, 
that its surface rises into inequalities, that 
it swells into mountains and stretches into 
valleys ; of another, that it is surrounded 
by an atmosphere which may support th 
respiration of animals; of a third, that 
clouds are formed and suspended over it, 
which may minister to it all the bloom and 
luxuriance of vegetation ; and of a fourth, 
that a white colour spreads over its north- 
ern regions, as its winter advances, and 
that on the approach of summer this white- 
ness is dissipated — giving room to suppose, 
that the element of water abounds in it, 
that it rises by evaporation into its atmos- 
phere, that it freezes upon the application 
of cold, that it is precipitated in the form of 
snow, that it covers the ground with a 



A SKETCH OF THE MODERN ASTRONOMY. 



71 



fleecy mantle, which melts away from the I 
heat of a more vertical sun; and that other 
worlds bear a resemblance to our own, in 
the same yearly round of beneficent and in- 
teresting changes. 

Who shall assign a limit to the discove- 
ries of future ages? Who can prescribe to 
science her boundaries, or restrain the ac- 
tive and insatiable curiosity of man within 
the circle of his present acquirements? We 
may guess with plausibility what we can- 
not" anticipate with confidence. The day 
may yet be coming, when our instruments 
of observation shall be inconceivably more 
powerful. They may ascertain still more 
decisive points of resemblance. They may 
resolve the same question by the evidence 
of sense which is now so abundantly con- 
vincing by the evidence of analogy. They 
may lay open to us the unquestionable ves- 
tiges of art, and industry, and intelligence. 
We may see summer throwing its green 
mantle over these mighty tracts, and we 
may see them left naked and colourless af- 
ter the flush of vegetation has disappeared. 
In the progress of years, or of centuries, we 
may trace the hand of cultivation spreading 
a new aspect over some portion of a plan- 
etary surface. Perhaps some large city, 
the metropolis of a mighty empire, may ex- 
pand into a visible spot by the powers of 
some future telescope. Perhaps the glass 
of some observer, in a distant age, may en- 
able him to construct a map of another 
world, and to lay down the surface of it in 
all its minute and topical varieties. But 
there is no end of conjecture, and to the 
men of other -times we leave the full assu- 
rance of what we can assert with the high- 
est probability, that yon planetary orbs are 
so many worlds, that they teem with life, 
and that the mighty Being who presides in 
high authority over this scene of grandeur 
and astonishment, has there planted wor- 
shippers of his glory. 

Did the discoveries of science stop here, 
we have enough to justify the exclamation 
( of the Psalmist, "What is man that thou 
t art mindful of him, or the son of man that 
thou shouldest deign to visit him ?-' They 
widen the empire of creation far beyond the 
limits w r hich ware formerly assigned to it, 
They give us to see that yon sun, throned 
in the centre of his planetary system, gives 
light, and warmth, and the vicissitude of 
seasons, to an extent of surface several hun- 
dreds of times greater than that of the earth 
which we inhabit. They lay open to us a 
number of worlds, rolling in their respect- 
j lve circles around this vast luminary — 
• and prove, that the ball which we tread 
upon, with all its mighty burden of oceans 
■ and continents, instead of being distinguished 
from the others, is among the least of them ; 
I and, from some of the more distant planets, 
would not occupy a more visible point in 



the concave of their fionament. They let 

us know, that though this mighty earth, 
with all its myriads of people, were to sink 
into annihilation, there are some worlds 
where an event so awful to us would be 
unnoticed and unknown, and others where 
it would be nothing more than the disap- 
pearance of a little star which had ceased 
from its twinkling. We should feel a sen- 
timent of modesty at this just but humili- 
ating representation. We should learn not 
to look on our earth as the universe of 
God, but one paltry and insignificant por 
tion of it ; that it is only one of the many 
mansions w T hich the supreme Being has 
created for the accommodation of his wor- 
shippers, and only one of the many worlds 
rolling in that flood of light which the sun 
pours around him to the outer limits of 
the planetary system. 

But is there nothing beyond these limits? 
The planetary system has its boundary, but 
space has none; and if we wing our fancy 
there, do w r e only travel through dark and 
unoccupied regions ? There are only five, 
or at most six, of the planetary orbs visible 
to the naked eye. What, then, is that multi- 
tude of other lights which sparkle in our 
firmament, and fill the whole concave of 
heaven with innumerable splendours ? The 
planets are all attached to the sun ; and, in 
circling around him, they do homage to that 
influence which binds them to perpetual 
attendance on this great luminary. But the 
other stars do not own his dominion. They 
do not circle around him. To all common 
observation, they remain immoveable ; and 
each, like the independent sovereign of his 
own territory, appears to occupy the same 
inflexible position in the regions of immen- 
sity. WTiat can we make of them ? Shall 
we take our adventurous flight to explore 
these dark and untravelled dominions ? 
What mean these innumerable fires lighted 
up in distant parts of the universe ? 'Are 
they only made to shed a feeble glimmer- 
ing over this little spot in the kingdom of 
nature ? or do they serve a purpose wor- 
thier of themselves, to light up other worlds, 
and give animation to other systems. 

The first thing which strikes a scientific 
observer of the fixed stars, is their immea- 
surable distance. If the whole planetary 
system were lighted up into a globe of fire, 
it would exceed, by many millions of times, 
the magnitude of this w r orld, and yet only 
appear a small lucid point from the nearest 
of them. If a body were projected from the 
sun with the velocity of a cannon-ball, it 
would take hundreds of thousands of years 
before it described that mighty interval 
which separates the nearest of the fixed 
stars from our sun and from our system. 
If this earth, which moves at more than the 
inconceivable velocity of a million and a 
half miles a day, w T ere to be hurried from 



72 



A SKETCH OF THE MODERN ASTRONOMY. 



[DISC. 



its orbit, and to take the same rapid flight 
over this immense tract, it would not have 
arrived at the termination of its journey, 
after taking all the time which has elapsed 
since the creation of the world. These are 
great numbers, and great calculations, and 
the mind feels its own impotency in at- 
tempting to grasp them. We can state them 
in words. We can exhibit them in figures. 
We can demonstrate them by the powers 
of a most rigid and infallible geometry. But 
no human fancy can summon up a lively 
or an adequate conception — can roam in its 
ideal flight over this immeasureable large- 
ness — can take in this mighty space in all 
its grandeur, and in all its immensity — can 
sweep the outer boundaries of such a crea- 
tion—or lift itself up to the majesty of that 
great and invisible arm, on which all is 
suspended. 

But what can those stars be which are 
seated so far beyond the limits of our plane- 
tary system? They must be masses of 
immense magnitude, or they could not be 
seen at the distance of place which they 
occupy. The light which they give must 
proceed from themselves, for the feeble re- 
flection of light from some other quarter, 
would not carry through such mighty tracts 
to the eye of an observer. A body may be 
visible in two ways. It may be visible from 
its own light, as the flame of a candle, or 
the brightness of a fire, or the brilliancy of 
yonder glorious sun, which lightens all be- 
low, and is the lamp of the world. Or it 
may be visible from the light which falls 
upon it, as the body which receives its light 
from the taper that falls upon it — or the 
whole assemblage of objects on the surface 
of the earth, which appear only when the 
light of day rests upon them — or the moon, 
which, in that part of it which is towards 
the sun, gives out a silvery whiteness to the 
eye of the observer, while the other part 
forms a black and invisible space in the 
firmament — or as the planets, which shine 
only because the sun shines upon them, 
and which, each of them, present the ap- 
pearance of a dark spot on the side that is 
turned away from it. Now apply this ques- 
tion to the fixed stars. Are they luminous 
of themselves, or do they derive their light 
from the sun, like the bodies of our plane- 
tary system ? Think of their immense dis- 
tance, and the solution of this question be- 
comes evident. The sun, like any other 
body, must dwindle into a less apparent 
magnitude as you retire from it. At the 
prodigious distance even of the very nearest 
of the fixed stars, it must have shrunk into 
a small indivisible point. In short, it must 
have become a star itself, and could shed no 
more light than a single individual of those 
glimmering myriads, the whole assemblage 
of which cannot dissipate, and can scarce- 
ly alleviate the midnight darkness of our 



world. These stars are visible to us, not 
because the sun seines upon them, but be- 
cause they shine of themselves, because 
they are so many luminous bodies scattered 
over the tracts of immensity; in a word, 
because they are so many suns each throned 
in the centre of his own dominions, and 
pouring a flood of light over his own por- 
tion of these unlimitable regions. 

At such an immense distance for obser- 
vation, it is not to be supposed, that we can 
collect many points of resemblance between 
the fixed stars, and the solar star which 
forms the centre of our planetary system. 
There is one point of resemblance, how- 
ever, which has not escaped the penetration 
of our astronomers. We know that our sun 
turns round upon himself, in a regular pe- 
riod of time. We also know, that there are 
dark spots scattered over his surface, which, 
though invisible to the naked eye, are per- 
fectly noticeable by our instruments. If 
these spots existed in greater quantity upon 
one side than upon another, it would have 
the general effect of making that side darker, 
and the revolution of the sun must, in such 
a case, give us a brighter and a fainter 
side, by regular alternations. Now, there 
are some of the fixed stars which present 
this appearance. They present us with pe 
riodical variations of light. From the splen 
dour of a star of the first or second magni- 
tude, they fade away into some of the 
inferior magnitudes — and one, by becoming 
invisible might give reason to apprehend 
that we had lost him altogether — but we 
can still recognize him by the telescope, till 
at length he re-appears in his own place, 
and, after a regular lapse of so many days 
and hours, recovers his original brightness. 
Now, the fair inference from this is, that 
the fixed stars, as they resemble our sun in 
being so many luminous masses of immense 
magnitude, they resemble him in this also, 
that each of them turns round upon his own 
axis ; so that if any of them should have an 
inequality in the brightness of their sides, 
this revolution is rendered evident, by the 
regular variations in the degree of light 
which it undergoes. 

Shall we say, then, of these vast lumina- 
ries, that they were created in vain ? Were 
they called into existence for no other pur- 
pose than to throw a tide of useless splen- 
dour over the solitudes of immensity? Our 
sun is only one of these luminaries, and we 
know that he has worlds in his train. Why 
should we strip the rest of this princely at- 
tendance ? Why may not each of them be 
the centre of his own system, and give light 
to his own worlds ? It is true that we see 
them not, but could the eye of man take its 
flight into those distant regions, it should j 
lose sight of our little world, before it reached j 
the outer limits of our system— the greater 
planets should disappear in their turn— be- 



I.] A SKETCH OF THE M 

fore it had described a small portion of that 
abyss which separates us from the fixed 
stars, the sun should decline into a little 
spot, and all its splendid retinue of worlds 
be lost in the obscurity of distance — he 
should, at last, shrink into a small indivisi- 
ble atom, and all that could be seen of this 
magnificent system, should be reduced to 
the glimmering of a little star. Why resist 
any longer the grand and interesting con- 
clusion ? Each of these stars may be the 
token of a system as vast and as splendid 
as the one which we inhabit. Worlds roll 
in these distant regions ; and these worlds 
must be the mansions of life and intelligence. 
In yon gilded canopy of heaven we see the 
broad aspect of the universe, where each 
shining point presents us with a sun, and 
each sun with a system of worlds — where 
the Divinity reigns in all the grandeur of 
his attributes — where he peoples immensity 
with his wonders ; and travels in the great- 
ness of his strength through the dominions 
of one vast and unlimited monarchy. 

The contemplation has no limits. If we 
ask the number of suns and of systems, the 
unassisted eye of man can take in a thou- 
sand, and the best telescope which the 
genius of man has constructed can take in 
eighty millions. Fancy may take its flight 
far beyond the ken of eye or of telescope. 
Shall we have the boldness to say, that 
there is nothing there — that the wonders of 
the Almighty are at an end — that the creative 
energy of God has sunk into repose, be- 
cause the imagination is enfeebled by the 
magnitude of its efforts ? 

There are two points of interesting spec- 
ulation, both of which serve to magnify our 
conceptions of the universe. If a body be 
struck in the direction of its centre, it ob- 
tains a progressive motion, but without any 
movement of revolution being at the same 
time impressed upon it. But, again, should 
the stroke not be in the direction of the cen- 
tre — should the line which joins the point 
of percussion to the centre, make an angle 
with that line in which the impulse was com- 
municated, then the body is both made to go 
forward in space, also to wheel upon its axis. 
Thus, each of our planets may have had 
their compound motion communicated to it 
by one single impulse ; and, on the other 
hand, if ever the rotatory motion be commu- 
nicated by one blow, then the progressive mo- 
tion must go along with it. In order to have 
the first motion without the second, there 
must be a twofold force applied to the body 
in opposite directions. It must be set agoing 
in the same way as a spinning-top, so as to 
revolve about an axis, and to keep un- 
changed its situation in space. 

But at this stage of the argument, the 
matter only remains a conjectural point of 
speculation. The sun may have had his 
rotation impressed upon him by a spinning 



ODERN ASTRONOMY. 73 

impulse ; or, this movement may be coeval 
with his being, and he may have derived 
both from an immediate fiat of the Creator. 
But there is an actually observed phenome- 
non of the heavens which advances the con- 
jecture into a probability. In the course 
of age, the stars in one quarter of the celes- 
tial sphere are apparently receding from 
each other; and in the opposite quarter, 
they are apparently drawing nearer to each 
other. If the sun be approaching the for- 
mer and receding from the latter, this phe- 
nomenon admits of an easy explanation, 
and we are furnished with a magnificent 
step in the scale of the Creator's workman- 
ship. In the same manner as the planets, 
with their satellites, revolve round the sun, 
may the sun, with all its tributaries, be 
moving in common with other stars, around 
some distant centre, from which there ema- 
nates an influence to bind and to subordi- 
nate them all. Our sun may, therefore, 
be only one member of a higher family 
— taking his part, along with millions of 
others, in some loftier system of mechanism, 
by which they are all subjected to one 
law, and to one arrangement — describing 
the sweep of such an orbit in space, and 
completing the mighty revolution in such a 
period of time, as to reduce our planetary 
seasons and our planetary movements, to a 
very humble and fractionary rank in the 
scale of a higher astronomy. There is room 
for all this in immensity ; and there is even 
argument for all this in the records of actual 
observation; and, from the whole of this 
speculation, do we gather a new emphasis 
to the lesson, how minute is the place, and 
how secondary is the importance of our 
world, amid the glories of such a surround- 
ing magnificence ! 

Another very interesting tract of specula- 
tion, has been opened up to us by the more 
recent observations of astronomy, the dis- 
covery of the nebula. We allow that it is 
but a dim and indistinct light which this 
discovery has thrown upon the structure of 
the universe ; but still it has spread before 
the eye of the mind a field of very wide and 
lofty contemplation. Before this the uni- 
verse might appear to have been composed 
of an indefinite number of suns, about equi- 
distant from each other, and each encom- 
passed by such a planetary attendance as 
takes place in our own system. But, it now 
appears instead of lying uniformly and in a 
state of equidistance from each other, they 
are arranged into distinct clusters — that, 
in the same manner as the distance of the 
nearest fixed stars, marks the separation of 
the solar systems, so the distance of two 
contiguous clusters may be so inconceivably 
superior to the reciprocal distance of those 
fixed stars which belong to the same cluster, 
as to mark an equally distinct separation of 
I the clusters, and to constitute each of them 



74 



A SKETCH OF THE MODERN ASTRONOMY. 



[DISC 



an individual member of some higher and 
more extended arrangement. This car- 
ries us upwards through another ascend- 
ing step in the scale of magnificence, and 
there leaves us wildering in the uncer- 
tainty, whether even here the wonderful 
progression is ended ; and at all events fixes 
the assured conclusion in our minds, that, 
to an eye which could spread itself over the 
whole, the mansion which accommodates 
our species might be so very small as to lie 
wrapped in microscopical concealment; and, 
in reference to the only Being who pos- 
sesses this universal eye, well might we 
say, " What is man that thou art mindful 
of him, or the son of man that thou shouldest 
deign to visit him ?" 

And, after all, though it be a mighty 
and difficult conception, yet who can ques- 
tion it ? What is seen may be nothing to 
what is unseen ; for what is seen is limited 
by the range of our instruments. What is 
unseen has no limit ; and, though all which 
the eye of man can take in, or his fancy can 
grasp at, were swept away, there might still 
remain as ample a field, over which the Di- 
vinity may expatiate, and which he may 
have peopled with innumerable worlds. If 
the whole visible creation were to disappear, 
it would leave a solitude behind it — but to 
the infinite Mind, that can take in the whole 
system of nature, this solitude might be 
nothing, a small unoccupied point in that 
immensity which surrounds it, and which 
he may have filled with the wonders of his 
omnipotence. Though this earth were to be 
burned up, though the trumpet of its disso- 
lution were sounded, though yon sky were 
to pass away as a scroll, and every visible 
glory, which the finger of Divinity has in- 
scribed on it, were to be put out for ever — 
an event so awful, to us and to every world 
in our vicinity, by which so many suns 
would be extinguished, and so many varied 
scenes of life and of populatiou would rush 
into forgetfulness — what is it in the high 
scale of the Almighty's workmanship? a 
mere shred, which, though scattered into 
nothing, would leave the universe of God 
one entire scene of greatness and of majesty. 
Though this earth, and these heavens, were 
to disappear, there are other worlds, which 
roll afar ; the light of other suns shines upon 
them ; and the sky which mantles them, is 
garnished with other stars. Is it presump- 
tion to say, that the moral world extends to 
these distant and unknown regions ? that 
they are occupied with people? that the 
charities of home and of neighbourhood 
flourish there ? that the praises of God are 
there lifted up, and his goodness rejoiced 
in ? that piety has its temples and its offer- 
ings? and the richness of the divine attri- 
butes is there felt and admired by intelli- 
gent worshippers ? 

And what is this world in the immensity 



which teems with them — and what are they 
who occupy it? The universe at large 
would suffer as little, in its splendour and 
variety, by the destruction of our planet, as 
the verdure and sublime magnitude of a 
forest would suffer by the fall of a single leaf. 
The leaf quivers on the branch which sup- 
ports it. It lies at the mercy of the slightest 
accident. A breatli of wind tears it from its 
stem, and it lights on the stream of water 
which passes underneath. In a moment of 
time, the life which we know, by the micro- 
scope, it teems with, is extinguished ; and, 
an occurrence, so insignificant in the eye of 
man, and on the scale of his observation, 
carries in it, to the myriads which people 
this little leaf, an event as terrible and as 
decisive, as the destruction of a world. Now, 
on the grand scale of the universe, we, the 
occupiers of this ball, which performs its 
little round among the suns and the systems 
that astronomy has unfolded — we may feel 
the same littleness and the same insecurity. 
We diiTer from the leaf only in this circum- 
stance, that it would require the operation 
of greater elements to destroy us. But 
these elements exist. The fire which rages 
within, may lift its devouring energy to the 
surface of our planet, and transform it into 
one wide and wasting volcano. The sudden 
formation of elastic matter in the bowels of 
the earth — and it lies within the agency of 
known substances to accomplish this — may 
explode it into fragments. The exhalation 
of noxious air from below, may impart a 
virulence to the air that is around us ; it may 
affect the delicate proportion of its ingre- 
dients ; and the whole of animated nature 
may wither and die under the malignity of 
a tainted atmosphere. A blazing comet 
may cross this fated planet in its orbit, and 
realize all the terrors which superstition has 
conceived of it. We cannot anticipate with 
precision the consequences of an event 
which every astronomer must know to lie 
within the limits of chance and probability. 
It may hurry our globe towards the sun — 
or drag it to the outer regions of the plane- 
tary system : or give it a new axis of revo- 
lution — and the effect ^which I shall simply 
announce, without explaining it, would be 
to change the place of the ocean, and bring 
another mighty flood upon our islands and 
continents. These are changes which may 
happen in a single instant of time, and 
against which nothing known in the present 
system of things provides us with any secu- 
rity. They migbt not annihilate the earth, 
but they would unpeople it ; and we who 
tread its surface with such firm and assured 
footsteps, are at the mercy of devouring 
elements, which, if let loose upon us by the 
hand of the Almighty, would spread solitude, 
and silence, and death over the dominions of 
the world. 

Now it is this littleness, and this inse- 



II] 



THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE 



75 



curity which make the protection of the 
Almighty so dear to us, and bring, with 
such emphasis, to every pious bosom, the 
holy lessons of humility and gratitude. 
The God who sitteth above, and presides in 
high authority over all worlds, is miudful 
of man ; and, though at this moment his 
energy is felt in the remotest provinces of 
creation, we may feel the same security in 
his providence, as if we were the objects of 
his undivided care. It is not for us to bring 
our minds up to this mysterious agency. 
But, such is the incomprehensible fact, that 
the same Being, whose eye is abroad over 
the whole universe, gives vegetation to 
every blade of grass, and motion to every 
particle of blood which circulates through 
the veins of the minutest animal ; that, 
though his,mind takes into its comprehen- 
sive grasp, immensity and all its wonders, I 
am as much known to him as if I were the 
single object of his attention ; that he marks 
all my thoughts ; that he gives birth to every 
feeling and every movement within me ; and 
that, with an exercise of power which I 
can neither describe nor comprehend, the 
same God who sits in the highest heaven 
and reigns over the glories of the firma- 
ment, is at my right hand, to give me every 
breath which I draw, and every comfort 
which I enjoy. 

But this very reflection has been appro- 
priated to the use of infidelity, and the very 
language of the text has been made to 
bear an application of hostility to the 
faith. " What is man, that God should be 
mindful of him, or the son of man, that he 
should deign to visit him?" Is it likely, 
says the Infidel, that God would send his 
eternal Son to die for the puny occupiers 



of so insignificant a province In the mighty 
field of his creation ? Are we the befitting 
objects of so great and so signal an interpo- 
sition? Does not the largeness of that field 
which astronomy lays open to the view of 
modern science, throw a suspicion over the 
truth of the gospel history ; and how shall 
we reconcile the greatness of that wonderful 
movement which was made in heaven for the 
redemption of fallen man, with the compara- 
tive meanness and obscurity of our species ? 

This is a popular argument against Chris- 
tianity, not much dwelt upon in books, but, 
we believe, a good deal insinuated in con- 
versation, and having no small influence on 
the amateurs of a superficial philosophy. 
At all events, it is right that every such 
argument should be met, and manfully con- 
fronted ; nor do we know a more discredita- 
ble surrender of our religion, than to act as 
if she hacUany thing to fear from the inge- 
nuity of h™ most accomplished adversaries. 
The author of the following treatise en- 
gages in his present undertaking, under the 
full impression that a something may be 
found with which to combat Infidelity in all 
its forms : that the truth of God and of his 
message, admits of a noble and decisive 
manifestation, through every mist which the 
pride, ortheprejudiceforthe sophistry of man 
may throw around it ; and elevated as the 
wisdom of him may be, who has ascended 
the heights of science, and poured the light 
of demonstration over the most wondrous 
of nature's mysteries, that even out of his 
own principles, it may be proved how much 
more elevated is the wisdom of him who 
sits with the docility of a little child, to his 
Bible, and casts down to its authority all 
his lofty imaginations. 



DISCOURSE II. 

The Modesty of True Science. 

"And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know." 

1 Corinthians vii. 2. 



There is much profound and important 
wisdom in that proverb of Solomon, where 
it is said, that the heart knoweth its own bit- 
terness. It forms part of a truth still more 
comprehensive, that every man knoweth his 
own peculiar feelings, and difficulties, and 
trials, far better than he can get any of his 
neighbours to perceive them. It is natural 
to us all, that we should desire to engross, 
to the uttermost, the sympathy of others 
with what is most painful to the sensibili- 
ties of our own bosom, and with what is 
most aggravating in the hardships of our 
own situation. But, labour it as we may, 



we cannot, with every power of expression 
make an adequate conveyance, as it were, 
of all our sensations, and of all our circum- 
stances, into another understanding. There 
is a something in the intimacy of a man's 
own experience, which he cannot make to 
pass entire into the heart and mind even of 
the most familiar companion — and thus it is, 
that he is so often defeated in his attempts 
to obtain a full and a cordial possession of 
his sympathy. He is mortified, and he won- 
ders at the obtuseness of the people around 
him— and how he cannot get them to enter 
into the justness of his complainings— nor 



76 



THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE. 



[DISC. 



to feel the point upon which turn the truth 
and the reason of his remonstrances— nor 
to give their interested attention to the case 
of his peculiarities and of his wrongs — nor 
to kindle, in generous resentment along with 
him, when he starts the topic of his indigna- 
tion. He does not reflect, all the while that, 
with every human being he addresses, there 
is an inner man, which forms a theatre of pas- 
sions, and of interests, as busy, as crowded, 
and as fitted as his own to engross the anxious 
and the exercised feelings of a heart, which 
can alone understand its own bitterness, and 
lay a correct estimate on the burden of its 
own visitations. Every man we meet, carries 
about with him, in the unperceived solitude 
of his bosom, a little world of his own — and 
we are just as blind, and as insensible, and 
as dull, both of perception and of sympathy 
about his engrossing objects, as he is about 
ours ; and, did we suffer this observation to 
have all its weight upon us, it nWght serve 
to make us more candid, and more consi- 
derate of others. It might serve to abate 
the monopolizing selfishness of our nature. 
It might serve to soften down all the malignity 
which comes out of those envious contem- 
plations that we are so apt to cast on the 
fancied ease and prosperity which are 
around us. It might serve to reconcile 
every man to his own lot, and dispose him 
to bear, with thankfulness, his own burden ; 
and sure I am, if this train of sentiment 
were prosecuted with firmness, and calm- 
ness, and impartiality, it would lead to the 
conclusion, that each profession in life has 
its own peculiar pains, and its own beset- 
ting inconveniences; that, from the very 
bottom of society, up to the golden pinnacle 
which blazons upon its summit, there is 
much in the shape of care and of suffering 
to be found — that, throughout all the con- 
ceiveable varieties of human condition, 
there are trials, which can neither be ade- 
quately told on the one side, nor fully un- 
derstood on the other — that the ways of God 
to man are as equal in this, as in every de- 
partment of his administration — and that, 
go to whatever quarter of human expe- 
rience we may, we shall find how he has 
provided enough to exercise the patience, 
and to accomplish the purposes of a wise and 
a salutary discipline upon all his children. 

I have brought forward this observation, 
that it may prepare the way for a second. 
There are perhaps no two sets of human 
beings, who comprehend less the move- 
ments, and enter less into the cares and con- 
cerns of each other, than the wide and busy 
public on the one hand ; and, on the other, 
those men of close and studious retirement, 
whom the world never hears of, save when, 
from their thoughtful solitude, there issues 
forth some splendid discovery, to set the 
world on a gaze of admiration. Then will 
the brilliancy of a superior genius draw 



every eye towards it — and the homage paid 
to intellectual superiority, will place its idol 
on a loftier eminence than all wealth or than 
all titles can bestow — and the name of the 
successful philosopher will circulate, in his 
own age, over the whole extent of civilized 
society, and be borne down to posterity 
in the characters of ever-during remem- 
brance — and thus it is, that, when we look 
back on the days of Newton, we annex a 
kind of mysterious greatness to him, who, 
by the pure force of his understanding, rose 
to such a gigantic elevation above the level 
of ordinary men — and the kings and war- 
riors of other days sink into insignificance 
around him ; and he, at this moment, stands 
forth to the public eye, in a prouder array 
of glory than circles the memory of all the 
men of former generations — ana), while all 
the vulgar grandeur of other days is now 
mouldering in forgetfulness, the achieve- 
ments of our great astronomer are still fresh 
in the veneration of his countrymen, and 
they carry him forward on the stream of 
time, with a reputation ever gathering, and 
the triumphs of a distinction that will never 
die. 

Now, the point that I want to impress 
upon you is, that the same public, who are 
so dazzled and overborne by the lustre of 
all this superiority, are utterly in the dark 
as to what that is which confers its chief 
merit on the philosophy of Newton. They 
see the result of his labours, but they 
know not how to appreciate the difficulty or 
the extent of them. They look on the 
stately edifice he has reared, but they know 
not what he had to do in settling the founda- 
tion which gives to it all its stability — nor 
are they aware what painful encounters he 
had to make, both with the natural predi- 
lections of his own heart, and with the pre- 
judices of others, when employed on the 
work of laying together its unperishing 
materials. They have never heard of the 
controversies which this man, of peaceful, 
unambitious modesty, had to sustain, with 
all that was proud and all that was intole- 
rant in the philosophy of the age. They 
have never, in thought, entered that closet 
which was the scene of his patient and pro- 
found exercises— nor have they gone along 
with him, as he gave his silent hours to the 
labours of the midnight oil, and plied that 
unwearied task, to which the charm of lofty 
contemplation had allured him— nor have 
they accompanied him through all the 
workings of that wonderful mind, from 
which, as from the recesses of a laboratory, 
there came forth such gleams and processes 
of thought as shed an efFulgency over the 
whole amplitude of nature. All this, the 
public have not done; for of this the great 
majority, even of the reading and cultivated 
public, are utterly incapable; and therefore 
is it, that they need to be told what that is, 



II.J 



THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE. 



in which the main distinction of his philo- 
sophy lies; that when labouring in other 
fields of investigation, they may know how 
to borrow from his safe example, and how to 
profit by that superior wisdom which mark- 
ed the whole conduct of his understanding. 

Let it be understood, then, that they are 
the positive discoveries of Newton, which, 
in the eye of a superficial public, confer up- 
on him all his reputation. He discovered 
the mechanism of the planetary system. 
He discovered the composition of light. 
He discovered the cause of those alternate 
movements which take place on the waters 
of the ocean. These form his actual and 
his visible achievements. These are what 
the world look at as the monuments of his 
greatness. These are doctrines by which 
he has enriched the field of philosophy; 
and thus it is that the whole of his merit is 
supposed to lie in having had the sagacity 
to perceive, and the vigour to lay hold of 
the proofs, which conferred upon these doc- 
trines all the establishment of a most rigid 
and conclusive demonstration. 

But, while he gets all his credit, and all 
his admiration for those articles of science 
which he has added to the creed of philoso- 
phers, he deserves as much credit and ad- 
miration for those articles which he kept 
out of his creed, as for those which he in- 
troduced into it. It was the property of his 
mind, that it kept a tenacious hold of every 
one position which had proof to substanti- 
ate it — but it forms a property equally cha- 
racteristic, and which, in fact, gives its 
leading peculiarity to the whole spirit and 
style of his investigations, that he put a 
most determined exclusion on every one 
position that was destitute of such proof. 
He would not admit the astronomical theo- 
ries of those who went before him, because 
they had no proof. He would not give in 
to their notions about the planets wheeling 
their rounds in whirlpools of ether — for he 
did not see this ether — he had no proof of 
its existence — and, besides, even supposing 
it to exist, it would not have impressed, on 
the heavenly bodies, such movements as 
met his observation. He would not submit 
his judgment to the reigning systems of the 
day — for, though they had authority to re- 
commend them, they had no proof: and 
thus it is, that he evinced the strength and 
the soundness of his philosophy, as much 
by his decisions upon those doctrines of sci- 
ence which he rejected, as by his demon- 
stration of those doctrines of science, which 
he was the first to propose, and which now 
stand out to the eye of posterity as the only 
monuments to the force and superiority of 
his understanding. 

He wanted no other recommendation for 
any one article of science, than the recom- 
mendation of evidence — and, with this re- 
commendation, he opened to it the chamber 



of his mind, though authority scowled upon 
it, and taste was disgusted by it, and fashion 
was ashamed of it, and all the beauteous 
speculation of former days was cruelly 
broken up by this new announcement of 
the better philosophy, and scattered like 
the fragments of an aerial vision, over 
which the past generations of the world 
had been slumbering their profound and 
their pleasing reverie. But, on the other 
hand, should the article of science want 
the recommendation of evidence, he shut 
against it all the avenues of his understand- 
ing — aye, and though all antiquity lent 
their suffrages to it, and all eloquence had 
thrown around it the most attractive bril- 
liancy, and all habit had incorporated it 
with every system of every seminary in 
Europe, and all fancy had arrayed it in 
graces of the most tempting solicitation; 
yet was the steady and inflexible mind of 
Newton proof against this whole weight of 
authority and allurement, and, casting his 
cold and unwelcome look at the specious 
plausibility, he rebuked it from his presence. 
The strength of his philosophy lay as much 
in refusing admittance to that which want- 
ed evidence, as in giving a place and an oc- 
cupancy to that which possessed it. In 
that march of intellect, which led him on- 
wards through the rich and magnificent 
field of his discoveries, he pondered every 
step ; and, while he advanced with a firm 
and assured movement, wherever the light 
of evidence carried him, he never suffered 
any glare of imagination or prejudice to se- 
duce him from his path. 

Sure I am, that, in the prosecution of his 
wonderful career, he found himself on a 
way beset with temptation upon every side 
of him. It was not merely that he had the 
reigning taste and philosophy of the times 
to contend with; but, he expatiated on a 
lofty region, where, in all the giddiness of 
success, he might have met with much to 
solicit his fancy, and tempt him to some 
devious speculation. Had he been like the 
majority of other men, he would have bro- 
ken free from the fetters of a sober and 
chastised understanding, and, giving wing 
to his imagination, had done what philoso- 
phers have done after him — been carried 
away by some meteor of their own forming, 
or found their amusement in some of their 
own intellectual pictures, or palmed some 
loose and confident plausibilities of their 
own upon the world. But Newton stood 
true to his principle, that he would take up 
with nothing which wanted evidence, and 
he kept by his demonstrations, and his 
measurements, and his proofs; and, if it be 
true that he who ruleth his own spirit is 
greater than he who taketh a city, there 
was won, in the solitude of his chamber, 
many a repeated victory over himself, which 
should give a brighter lustre to his name 



78 



THE MODESTY OF 



TRUE SCIENCE. 



[DISC. 



than all the conquests he has made on the 
field of discovery, or than all the splendour 
of his positive achievements. 

I trust you understand, how, though it 
be one of the maxims of the true philoso- 
phy, never to shrink from a doctrine which 
has evidence on its side, it is another max- 
im, equally essential to it, never to harbour 
any doctrine when this evidence is want- 
ing. Take these two maxims along with 
you, and you will be at no loss to explain 
the peculiarity, which, more than any other, 
goes both to characterise and to ennoble 
the philosophy of Newton. What I allude 
to is, the precious combination of its 
strength and of its modesty. On the one 
hand, what greater evidence of strength 
than the fulfilment of that mighty enter- 
prise, by which the heavens have been 
made its own, and the mechanism of un- 
numbered worlds has been brought within 
the grasp of the human understanding? 
Now, it was by walking in the light of a 
sound and competent evidence, that all this 
was accomplished. It was by the patient, 
the strenuous, the unfaltering application 
of the legitimate instruments of discovery. 
It was by touching that which was tangi- 
ble, and looking to that which was visible, 
and computing that which was measure- 
able, and in one word, by making a right 
and a reasonable use of all that proof which 
the field of nature around us has brought 
within the limit of sensible observation. 
This is the arena on which the modern 
philosophy has won all her victories, and 
fulfilled all her wondrous achievements, and 
reared all her proud and enduring monu- 
ments, and gathered all her magnificent 
trophies to that power of intellect with 
which the hand of a bounteous heaven 
has so richly gifted the constitution of our 
species. 

But, on the other hand, go beyond the 
limits of sensible observation, and, from that 
moment, the genuine disciples of this en- 
lightened school cast all their confidence 
and all their intrepidity away from them. 
Keep them on the firm ground of experi- 
ment, and none more bold and more deci- 
sive in their announcements of all that they 
have evidence for — but, off this ground, 
none more humble, or more cautious of any 
thing like positive announcements, than 
they. They choose neither to know, nor 
to believe, nor to assert, where evidence is 
wanting ; and they will sit, with all the pa- 
tience of a scholar to his task, till they have 
found it. They are utter strangers to that 
haughty confidence with which some phi- 
losophers of the day sport the plausibilities 
of unauthorised speculation, and by which, 
unmindful of the limit that separates the 
region of sense from the region of conjec- 
ture, they make their blind and their im- 
petuous inroads into a province which does 



not belong to them. There Is no one object 
to which the exercised mind of a true New- 
tonian disciple is more familiarized than 
this limit, and it serves as a boundary by 
which he shapes, and bounds, and regulates, 
all the enterprises of his philosophy. All 
the space which lies within this limit, he 
cultivates to the uttermost, and it is by such 
successive labours, that every year which 
rolls over the world, is witnessing some 
new contribution to experimental science, 
and adding to the solidity and aggrandize- 
ment of this wonderful fabric. But, if true 
to their own principle, then, in reference to 
the forbidden ground which lies without 
this limit, those very men, who, on the field 
of warranted exertion, evinced all the hardi- 
hood and vigour of a full grown under- 
standing, show, on every subject where the 
light of evidence is withheld from them, all 
the modesty of children. They give you 
positive opinion only when they have in- 
disputable proof— but, when they have no 
such proof, then they have no such opinion. 
The single principle of their respect to truth, 
secures their homage for every one posi- 
tion, where the evidence of truth is present, 
and, at the same time, begets an entire dif- 
fidence about every one position, from which 
this evidence is disjoined. And thus you 
may understand, how the first man in the 
accomplishments of philosophy, which the 
world ever saw, sat at the book of nature 
in the humble attitude of its interpreter and 
its pupil — how all the docility of conscious 
ignorance threw a sweet and softening lus- 
tre around the radiance even of his most 
splendid discoveries — and, while the flip- 
pancy of a few superficial acquirements is 
enough to place a philosopher of the day 
on the pedestal of his fancied elevation, and 
to vest him with an assumed lordship over 
the whole domain of natural and revealed 
knowledge; I cannot forbear to do honour 
to the unpretending greatness of Newton, 
than whom I know not if there ever lighted 
on the face of our world, one in the charac- 
ter of whose admirable genius so much 
force and so much humility were more at- 
tractively blended. 

I now propose to carry, you forward, by 
a few simple illustrations, to the argument 
of this day. All the sublime truths of th 
modern astronomy lie within the field of 
actual observation, and have the firm evi- 
dence to rest upon of all that information 
which is conveyed to us by the avenue of 
the senses. Sir Isaac Newton never went 
beyond this field, without a reverential im- 
pression upon his mind, of the precarious- 
ness of the ground on which he was stand- 
ing. On this ground, he never ventured a 
positive affirmation— but, resigning the lofty 
tone of demonstration, and putting on the 
modesty of conscious ignorance, he brought 
forward all he had to say in the humble 



n-1 



THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE. 



79 



Sbrni of a doubt, or a conjecture, or a ques- 
tion. But, what he had not confidence to do, 
other philosophers have done after him — 
and they have winged their audacious way 
into forbidden regions — and they have 
crossed that circle by which the field of 
observation is enclosed — and there have 
they debated and dogmatized with all the 
pride of a most intolerant assurance. 

Now, though the case be imaginary, let 
us conceive, for the sake of illustration, 
that one of these philosophers made so ex- 
travagant a departure from the sobriety of 
experimental science, as to pass from the 
astronomy of the different planets, and to 
attempt the natural history of their animal 
and vegetable kingdoms. He might get 
hold of some vague and general analogies, 
to throw an air of plausibility around his 
speculation. He might pass from the botany 
of the different regions of the globe that we 
inhabit, and make his loose and confident 
application to each of the other planets, ac- 
cording to its distance from the sun, and 
the inclination of its axis to the plane of its 
annual revolution; and out of some such 
slender materials, he may work up an 
amusing philosophical romance, full of in- 
genuity, and having, withal, the colour of 
truth and of consistency spread over it. 

I can conceive how a superficial public 
might be delighted by the eloquence of such 
a composition, and even be impressed by 
its arguments ; but were I asked, which is 
the man of all the ages and countries in 
the world, who would have the least respect 
for this treatise upon the plants which grow 
on the surface of Jupiter, I should be at no 
loss to answer the question. I should say, 
that it would be he who had computed the 
motions of Jupiter — that it would be he 
who had measured the bulk and the density 
of Jupiter — that it would be he who had 
estimated the periods of Jupiter — that it 
would be he whose observant eye and pa- 
tiently calculating mind, had traced the 
satellites of Jupiter through all the rounds 
of their mazy circulation, and unravelled 
the intricacy of all their movements. He 
would see at once that the subject lay at a 
hopeless distance beyond the field of legiti- 
mate observation. It would be quite enough 
for him, that it was beyond the range of 
his telescope. On this ground, and on this 
ground only, would he reject it as one of 
the puniest imbecilities of childhood. As 
to any character of truth or of importance, 
it would have no more effect on such a 
mind as that of Newton, than any illusion of 
poetry; and from the eminence of his intel- 
lectual throne, would he cast a penetrating 
glance at the whole speculation, and bid its 
gaudy insignificance away from him. 

But let us pass onward to another case, 
which, though as imaginary as the former J 
may still serve the purpose of illustration. 



This same adventurous philosopher may 
be conceived to shift his speculation from 
the plants of another world to the character 
of its inhabitants. He may avail himself 
of some slender correspondencies between 
the heat of the sun and the moral tempera- 
ment of the people it shines upon. He may 
work up a theory, which carries on the front 
of it some of the characters of plausibility : 
but surely it does not require the philoso- 
phy of Newton to demonstrate the folly of 
such an enterprise. There is not a man of 
plain understanding, who does not perceive 
that this said ambitious inquirer has got 
without his reach— that he has stepped be- 
yond the field of experience, and is now 
expatiating on the field of imagination — 
that he has ventured on a dark unknown, 
where the wisest of all philosophy, is the 
philosophy of silence, and a profession of 
ignorance is the best evidence of a solid 
understanding; that if he thinks he knows 
any thing on such a subject as this, he 
knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. 
He knows not what Newton knew, and 
what he kept a steady eye upon throughout 
the whole march of his sublime investiga- 
tions. He knows not the limit of his own 
faculties. He has overleaped the barrier 
which hems in all the possibilities of human 
attainment. He has wantonly flung him- 
self off from the safe and firm field of ob- 
servation, and got on that undiscoverahle 
ground, where, by every step he takes, he 
widens his distance from the true philoso- 
phy, and by every affirmation he utters, 
he rebels against the authority of all its 
maxims. 

I can conceive it the feeling of every one 
of you, that I have hitherto iudulged in a 
vain expense of argument, and it is most 
natural for you to put the question, "What 
is the precise point of convergence to which 
I am directing all the light of this abundant 
and seemingly superfluous illustration V 

In the astronomical objection which in- 
fidelity has proposed against the truth of 
the Christian revelation, there is first an 
assertion, and then an argument. The as- 
sertion is, that Christianity is set up for 
the exclusive benefit of our minute and 
solitary world. The argument is, that God 
would not lavish such a quantity of atten- 
tion on so insignificant a field. Even though 
the assertion were admitted, I should have 
a quarrel with the argument. But the fu- 
tility of the objection is not laid open in all 
its extent, unless we expose the utter want 
of all essential evidence even for the truth 
of the assertion. How do infidels know 
that Christianity is set up for the single 
benefit of this earth and its inhabitants? 
How are they able to tell us, that if you 
go to other planets, the person and the re- 
ligion of Jesus, are there unknown to them ? 
We challenge them to the proof of this said 



so 



THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE. 



[DISC. 



positive announcement of theirs. We see 
m this objection the same rash and gratui- 
tous procedure, which was so apparent in 
the two cases that we have already advan- 
ced for the purpose of illustration. We see 
in it the same glaring transgression on the 
spirit and the maxims of that very philoso- 
phy which they profess to idolize. They 
have made their argument against us, out 
of an assertion which has positively no feet 
to rest upon — an assertion which they have 
no means whatever of verifying — an asser- 
tion, the truth or the falsehood of which 
can only be gathered out of some super- 
natural message ; for it lies completely be- 
yond the range of human observation. It 
is willingly admitted, that by an attempt 
at the botany of other worlds, the true 
method of philosophising is trampled on ; 
for this is a subject that lies beyond the 
range of actual observation, and every per- 
formance upon it must be made up of as- 
sertions without proofs. It is also willingly 
admitted, that an attempt at the civil and 
political history of their people, would be 
an equally extravagant departure from the 
spirit of the true philosophy ; for this also 
lies beyond the field of actual observation ; 
and all that could possibly be mustered up 
on such a subject as this, would still be as- 
sertions without proofs. Now, the theology 
of these planets, is, in every way, as inac- 
cessible a subject as their politics or their 
natural history ; and therefore it is, that the 
objection, grounded on the confident as- 
sumption of those infidel astronomers, who 
assert Christianity, to be the religion of this 
one world, or that the religion of these 
other worlds is not our very Christianity, 
can have no influence on a mind that has 
derived its habits of thinking from the pure 
and rigorous school of Newton; for the 
whole of this assertion is just as glaringly 
destitute, as in the two former instances, 
of proof. 

The man who could embark in an enter- 
prise so foolish and so fanciful, as to theorise 
it on the details of the botany of another 
world, or to theorise it on the natural and 
moral history of its people, is just making 
as outrageous a departure from all sense, 
and science, and all sobriety, when he pre- 
sumes to speculate, or to assert on the de- 
tails or the methods of God's administra- 
tion among its rational and accountable in- 
habitants. He wings his fancy to as haz- 
ardous a region, and vainly strives a pene- 
trating vision through the mantle of as 
deep an obscurity. All the elements of 
such a speculation are hidden from him. 
For any thing he can tell, sin has found its 
way into these other worlds. For any thing 
he can tell, their people have banished them- 
selves from communion with God. For 
any thing he can tell, many a visit has 
been made to each of them, on the subject 



of our common Christianity, by commis- 
sioned messengers from the throne of the 
Eternal. For any thing he can tell, the 
redemption proclaimed to us is not one 
solitary instance, or not the whole of that 
redemption which is by the Son of God — 
but only our part in a plan of mercy, equal 
in magnificence to all that astronomy has 
brought within the range of human con- 
templation. For any thing he can tell, the 
moral pestilence, which walks abroad over 
the face of our world, may have spread its 
desolation over all the planets of all the 
systems, which the telescope has made 
known to us. For any thing he can tell, 
some mighty redemption has been devised 
in heaven, to meet this disaster in the whole 
extent and malignity of its visitations. For 
any thing he can tell, the wonder working 
God, who has strewed the field of immen- 
sity with so many worlds, and spread the 
shelter of his omnipotence over them, may 
have sent a message of love to each, and 
re-assured the hearts of its despairing peo- 
ple by some overpowering manifestation 
of tenderness. For any thing he can tell, 
angels from paradise may have sped to 
every planet their delegated way, and sung, 
from each azure canopy, a joyful annuncia- 
tion, and said, " Peace be to this residence, 
and good will to all its families, and glorv 
to Him in the highest, who, from the emi- 
nency of his throne, has issued an act of 
grace so magnificent, as to carry the tidings 
of life and of acceptance to the unnumber- 
ed orbs of a sinful creation." For any thing 
he can tell, the Eternal Son, of whom it is 
said, that by him the worlds were created, 
may have had the government of many 
sinful worlds laid upon his shoulders ; and 
by the power of his mysterious word, have 
awoke them all from that spiritual death, 
to which they had sunk in lethargy as pro- 
found as the slumbers of nonexistence. 
For any thing he can tell, the one Spirit 
who moved on the face of the waters, and 
whose presiding influence it was, that hush- 
ed the wild war of nature's elements, and 
made a beauteous system emerge out of its 
disjointed materials, may now be working 
with the fragments of another chaos ; and 
educing order, and obedience, and harmo- 
ny, out of the wrecks of a moral rebellion, 
which reaches through all these spheres, 
and spreads disorder to the uttermost limits 
of our astronomy. 

But, here I stop — nor shall I attempt to 
grope my dark and fatiguing way, by 
another inch, among such sublime and mys- 
terious secrecies. It is not I who am offer- 
ing to lift this curtain. It is not I who am 
pitching my adventurous flight to the se- 
cret things which belong to God, away 
from the things that are revealed, and 
which belong to me and to my children. 
It is the champion of that very infidelity 



II.] 



THE MODESTY OF TRITE SCIENCE, 



SI 



which I am now combating. It is he who 
props his unchristian argument, by pre- 
sumptions fetched out of those untravelled 
obscurities which he on the other side of a 
barrier that I pronounce to be impassable. 
It is he who transgresses the limits which 
Newton forbore to enter ; because, with a 
justness which reigns throughout all his in- 
quiries, he saw the limit of his own under- 
standing, nor would he venture himself be- 
yond it. It is he who has borrowed from 
the philosophy of this wondrous man, a few 
dazzling conceptions, which have only served 
to bewilder him — while, an utter stranger 
to the spirit of this philosophy, he has car- 
ried a daring and an ignorant speculation 
far beyond the boimdary of its prescribed 
and allowable enterprises. It is he who 
has mustered against the truths of the Gos- 
pel, resting, as it does, on the evidence 
within the reach of his faculties, an objec- 
tion, for the truth of which he has no evi- 
dence whatever. It is he who puts away 
from him a doctrine, for which he has the 
substantial and the familiar proof of human 
testimony; and substitutes in its place a 
doctrine for which he can get no other sup- 
port than from a reverie of his own imagi- 
nation. It is he who turns aside from all 
that safe and certain argument, that is sup- 
plied by the history of this world, of which 
he knows something ; and who loses him- 
self in the work of theorising about other 
worlds, of the moral and theological history 
of which he positively knows nothing. 
Upon him, and not upon us, lies the folly 
of launching his impetuous way beyond 
the province of observation — of letting his 
fancy afloat among the unknown of distant 
and mysterious regions ; and by an act of 
daring, as impious as it is unphilosophical, 
of trying to unwrap that shroud, which, till 
drawn aside by the hand of a messenger 
from heaven, will ever veil, from human 
eye, the purposes of the Eternal. 

If you have gone along with me in the 
preceding observations, you will perceive 
how they are calculated to disarm of all its 
point and all its energy, that flippancy of 
Voltaire ; when, in the examples he gives 
of the dotage of the human understanding, 
he tells us of Bacon having believed in 
witchcraft, and Sir Isaac Newton having 
written a Commentary on the Book of Re- 
velation. The former instance we shall 
not undertake to vindicate ; but in the lat- 
ter instance, we perceive what this brilliant 
and spacious, but withal superficial, apostle 
of infidelity, either did not see, or refused 
to acknowledge. We see in this intellec- 
tual labour of our great philosopher, the 
working of the very same principles which 
carried him through the profoundest and 
the most successful of his investigations ; 
and how he kept most sacredly and most 
consistently bv those very maxims, the 
L 



authority of which he, even in the full 
vigor and manhood of his faculties, ever 
recognized. We see in the theology of 
Newton, the very spirit and principle which 
gave all its stability, and all its sureness, to 
the philosophy of Newton. We see the 
same tenacious adherence to every one doc- 
trine, that had such valid proof to uphold 
it, as could be gathered from the field of 
human experience; and we see the same 
firm resistance of every one argument, that 
had nothing to recommend it, but such 
plausibilities as could easily be devised by 
the genius of man, when he expatiated 
abroad on those fields of creation, which 
the eye never witnessed, and from which 
no messenger ever came to us with any 
credible information. Now, it was on the 
former of these two principles that Newton 
clung so determinedly to his Bible, as the 
record of an actual annunciation from God 
to the inhabitants of this world. When he 
turned his attention to this book, he came 
to it with a mind tutored to the philosophy 
of facts — and, when he looked at its cre- 
dentials, he saw the stamp and the impress 
of this philosophy on every one of them. 
He saw the fact of Christ being a messen- 
ger from heaven, in the audible language 
by which it was conveyed from heaven's 
canopy to human ears. He saw the fact 
of his being an approved ambassador of 
God, in those miracles which carried their 
own resistless evidence along with them to 
human eyes. He saw the truth of this 
whole history brought home to his own 
conviction, by a sound and substantial ve- 
hicle of human testimony. He saw the 
reality of that supernatural light, which in- 
spired the prophecies he himself illustrated, 
by such an agreement with the events of a 
various and distant futurity as could be 
taken cognizance of by human observation. 
He saw the wisdom of God pervading the 
whole substance of the written message, in 
such manifold adaptations to the circum- 
stances of man, and to the whole secrecy 
of his thoughts, and his affections, and his 
spiritual wants, and his moral sensibilities, 
as even in the mind of an ordinary and un- 
lettered peasant, can be attested by human 
consciousness. These formed the solid ma- 
terials of the basis on which our experi- 
mental philosopher stood; and there was 
nothing in the whole compass of his own 
astronomy to dazzle him away from it; and 
he was too well aware of the limit between 
what he knew and what he did not know, 
to be seduced from the ground he had 
taken, by any of those brilliancies which 
have since led so many of his humbler suc- 
cessors into the track of infidelity. He had 
measured the distances of these planets. 
He had calculated their periods. He had 
estimated their figures, and their bulk, and 
their densities, and he had subordinated the 



82 



THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE. 



[DISC. 



whole intricacy of their movements to the 
simple and sublime agency of one com- 
manding principle. But he had too much 
of the ballast of a substantial understanding 
about him, to be thrown afloat by all this 
success among the plausibilities of wanton 
and unauthorized speculation. He knew 
the boundary which hemmed him. He knew 
that he had not thrown one particle of light 
on the moral or religious history of these 
planetary regions. He had not ascertained 
what visits of communication they received 
from the God who upholds them. But he 
knew that the fact of a real visit made to 
this planet, had such evidence to rest upon, 
that it was not to be disposted by any aerial 
imagination. And when I look at the steady 
and unmoved Christianity of this wonder- 
ful man ; so far from seeing any symptom 
of dotage and imbecility, or any forgetful- 
ness of those principles on which the fabric 
of his philosophy is reared ; do I see that 
in sitting down to the work of a Bible Com- 
mentator, he hath given us their most 
beautiful and most consistent exemplifica- 
tion. 

I did not anticipate such a length of time, 
and of illustration, in this stage of my ar- 
gument. But I will not regret it, if I have 
familiarised the minds of any of my readers 
to the reigning principle of this Discourse. 
We are strongly disposed to think, that it 
is a principle which might be made to ap- 
ply to every argument of every unbeliever 
— and so to serve not merely as an anti- 
dote against the infidelity of astronomers, 
but to serve as an antidote against all infi- 
delity. We are well aware of the diversity 
of complexion which infidelity puts on. It 
looks one thing in the man of science and 
of liberal accomplishment. It looks another 
thing in the refined voluptuary. It looks 
still another thing in the common-place 
railer against the artifices of priestly domi- 
nation. It looks another thing in the dark 
and unsettled spirit of him, whose every 
reflection is tinctured with gall, and who 
casts his envious and malignant scowl at 
all that stands associated with the esta- 
blished order of society. It looks another 
thing in the prosperous man of business, 
who has neither time nor patience for the 
details of the christian evidence — but who, 
amid the hurry of his other occupations, 
has gathered as many of the lighter petu- 
lances of the infidel writers, and caught 
from the perusal of them, as contemptuous 
a tone towards the religion of the New 
Testament, as to set him at large from all 
the decencies of religious observation, and 
to give him the disdain of an elevated com- 
placency over all the follies of what he 
counts a vulgar superstition. 

And, lastly, for infidelity has now got 
down among us to the humblest walks of 
life ; may it occasionally be seen lowering 



on the forehead of the resolute and hardy 
artificer, who can lift his menacing voice 
against the priesthood, and, looking on the 
Bible as a jugglery of theirs, can bid stout 
defiance to all its denunciations. Now, 
under all these varieties, we think that 
there might be detected the one and uni- 
versal principle which we have attempted 
to expose. The something, whatever it is, 
which has dispossessed all these people of 
their Christianity, exists in their minds, in 
the shape of a position, which they hold to 
be true, but which, by no legitimate evi 
dence, they have ever realized — and a po- 
sition which lodges within them as a wil- 
ful fancy or presumption of their own, 
but which could not stand the touch- 
stone of that wise and solid principle, in 
virtue of which, the followers of Newton 
give to observation the precedence over 
theory. It is a principle altogether worthy 
of being laboured — as, if carried round in 
faithful and consistent application among 
these numerous varieties, it is able to break 
up all the existing infidelity of the world. 

But there is one other most important 
conclusion to which it carries us. It car- 
ries us, with all the docility of children, to 
the Bible; and puts us down into the atti- 
tude of an unreserved surrender of thought 
and understanding, to its authoritative in- 
formation. Without the testimony of an 
authentic messenger from heaven, I know 
nothing of heaven's counsels. I never heard 
of any moral telescope that can bring to 
my observation the doings or the delibera- 
tions which are taking place in the sanc- 
tuary of the Eternal. I may put into the 
registers of my belief, all that comes home 
to me through the senses of the outer man, 
or by the consciousness of the inner man. 
But neither the one nor the other can tell 
me of the purposes of God ; can tell me of 
the transactions or the designs of his sub- 
lime monarchy ; can tell me of the goings 
forth of Him who is from everlasting unto 
everlasting ; can tell me of the march and 
the movements of that great administration 
which embraces all worlds, and takes into 
its wide and comprehensive survey the 
mighty roll of innumerable ages. It is true 
that my fancy may break its impetuous 
way into this lofty and inaccessible field ; 
and through the devices of my heart, which 
are many, the visions of an ever-shifting 
theology may take their alternate sway- 
over me ; but the counsel of the Lord, it 
shall stand. And I repeat it, that if true 
to the leading principle of that philosophy, 
which has poured such a flood of light over 
the mysteries of nature, we shall dismiss 
every self-formed conception of our own, 
and wait in all the humility of conscious 
ignorance, till the Lord himself shall break 
his silence, and make his counsel known, 
by an act of communication. And now 



III.] 



EXTENT OF DIVINE CONDESCENSION. 



ihat a professed communication is before 
me, and that it has all the solidity of the 
experimental evidence on its side, and 
nothing but the reveries of a daring specu- 
lation to oppose it, what is the consistent, 
what is the rational, what is the philoso- 
phical use that should be made of this doc- 
ument, but to set me down like a school- 
boy, to the work of turning its pages, and 
conning its lessons, and submitting the 
every exercise of my judgment to its infor- 
mation and its testimony ? We know that 
there is a superficial philosophy, which 
casts the glare of a most seducing brilliancy 
around it ; and spurns the Bible, with all 



the doctrine, and all the piety of the Bible, 
away from it ; and has infused the spirit of 
Antichrist into many of the literary esta- 
blishments of the age ; but it is not the solid, 
the profound, the cautious spirit of that 
philosophy, which has done so much to 
ennoble the modern period of our world ; 
for the more that this spirit is cultivated 
and understood, the more will it be found 
in alliance with that spirit, in virtue of 
which all that exalteth itself against the 
knowledge of God, is humbled, and all lofty 
imaginations are cast down, and every 
thought of the heart is brought into the 
captivity of the obedience of Christ. 



DISCOURSE III. 

On the Extent of the Divine Condescension. 

u Who is like unto the Lord our God, who dwelleth on high ? Who humbleth himself to behold the things 
that are in heaven, and in the earth V— Psalm cxin. o } b. 



In our last discourse we attempted to ex- 
pose the total want of evidence for the as- 
sertion of the infidel astronomer — and this 
reduces the whole of our remaining contro- 
versy with him to the business of arguing 
against a mere possibility. Still, however, 
the answer is not so complete as it might 
be, till the soundness of the argument be at- 
tended to, as well as the credibility of the 
assertion — or, in other words, let us admit 
the assertion, and take a view of the reason- 
ing which has been constructed upon it. 

We have already attempted to lay before 
you the wonderful extent of that space, 
teeming with unnumbered worlds, which 
modern science has brought within the cir- 
cle of its discoveries. We even ventured to 
expatiate on those tracts of infinity, which 
lie on the other side of all that eye or that 
telescope hath made known to us — to shoot 
afar into those ulterior regions which are 
beyond the limits of our astronomy — to im- 
press you with the rashness of the imagina- 
tion, that the creative energy of God had 
sunk exhausted by the magnitude of its ef- 
forts, at that very line, through which the 
art of man, lavished as it has been on the 
work of perfecting the instruments of vision, 
has not yet been able to penetrate: and 
upon all this we hazarded the assertion, 
that though all these visible heavens were 
to rush into annihilation, and the besom of 
the Almighty's wrath were to sweep from 
the face of the universe, those millions, and 
millions more of suns and of systems, which 
lie within the grasp of our actual observation 
— that this event, which, to our eye, would 
leave so wide, and so dismal a solitude be- 
hind it, might be nothing in the eye of Him 



who could take in the Avhole, but the disap- 
pearance of a little speck from that field of 
created things, which the hand of his om- 
nipotence had thrown around him. 

But to press home the sentiment of the 
text, it is not necessary to stretch the im- 
agination beyond the limit of our actual dis- 
coveries. It is enough to strike our minds 
with the insignificance of this world, and of 
all who inhabit it, to bring it into measure- 
ment with that mighty assemblage of worlds, 
which lie open to the eye of man, aided as 
it has been by the inventions of his genius. 
When we told you of the eighty millions 
of suns, each occupying his own independ- 
ent territory in space, and dispensing his own 
influences over a cluster of tributary worlds ; 
this world could not fail to sink into little- 
ness in the eye of him who looked to all the 
magnitude and variety which are around 
it. We gave you but a feeble image of our 
comparative insignificance, when we said 
that the glories of an extended forest would 
suffer no more from the fall of a single leaf, 
than the glories of this extended universe 
would suffer, though the globe we tread, 
" and all that it inherits, should dissolve." 
And when we lift our conceptions to Him 
who has peopled immensity with all these 
wonders — who sits enthroned on the mag- 
nificence of his own works, and by one sub- 
lime idea can embrace the whole extent of 
that boundless amplitude, which he has 
filled with the trophies of his divinity : we 
cannot but resign our whole heart to the 
Psalmist's exclamation of "What is man, 
that thou art mindful of him, or the son of 
man, that thou shouldest deign to visit 
him!" 



84 



EXTENT OF DIVINE CONDESCENSION. 



[DISC. 



Now mark the use to which all this has 
been turned by the genius of infidelity. 
Such a humble portion of the universe as 
ours, could never have been the object of 
such high and distinguishing attentions as 
Christianity has assigned to it. God would 
not have manifested himself in the flesh for 
the salvation of so paltry a world. The 
monarch of a whole continent, would never 
move from his capital, and lay aside the 
splendour of royalty, and subject himself 
for months, or for years, to perils, and 
poverty, and persecution ; and take up his 
abode in some small islet of his dominions, 
which, though swallowed by an earthquake, 
could not be missed amid the glories of so 
wide an empire ; and all this to regain the 
lost affections of a few families upon its 
surface. And neither would the eternal Son 
of God — he who is revealed to us as having 
made all worlds, and as holding an empire, 
amid the splendours of which the globe that 
we inherit, is shaded insignificance; neither 
would he strip himself of the glory he had 
with the Father before the world was, and 
light on this lower scene, for the purpose 
imputed to him in the New Testament. Im- 
possible, that the concerns of this puny ball, 
which floats its little round among an in- 
finity of larger worlds, should be of such 
mighty account in the plans of the Eternal, 
or should have given birth in heaven to so 
wonderful a movement, as the Son of God 
putting on the form of our degraded 
species, and sojourning among us, and 
sharing in all our infirmities, and crown- 
ing the whole scene of humiliation by the 
disgrace and the agonies of a cruel martyr- 
dom. 

This has been started as a difficulty in 
the way of the Christian Revelation ; and 
it is the boast of many of our philosophical 
infidels, that by the light of modern disco- 
very, the light of the New Testament is 
eclipsed and overborne ; and the mischief 
is not confined to philosophers, for the argu- 
ment has got into other hands, and the 
popular illustrations that are now given to 
the sublimest truths of science, have widely 
disseminated all the deism that has been 
grafted upon it ; and the high tone of a decided 
contempt for the Gospel, is now associated 
with the flippancy of superficial acquire- 
ments: and, while the venerable Newton, 
whose genius threw open those mighty fields 
of contemplation, found a fit exercise for his 
powers in the interpretation of the Bible, 
there are thousands and tens of thousands, 
who, though walking in the light which he 
holds out to them, are seduced by a com- 
placency which he never felt, and inflated 
by a pride which never entered into his 
pious and philosophical bosom, and whose 
only notice of the Bible, is to depreciate, 
and to deride, and to disown it. 

Before entering into what we conceive to 



be the right answer to this objection, let us 
previously observe, that it goes to strip the 
Deity of an attribute which forms a wonder- 
ful addition to the glories of ' his incompre- 
hensible character. It is indeed a mighty 
evidence of the strength of his arm, that so 
many millions of worlds are suspended on 
it; but it would surely make the high attri- 
bute of his power more illustrious, if while 
it expatiated at large among the suns and 
the systems of astronomy, it could, at the 
very same instant, be impressing a move- 
ment and a direction on all the minuter 
wheels of that machinery, which is work- 
ing incessantly around us. It forms a no- 
ble demonstration of his wisdom, that he 
gives unremitting operation to those laws 
which uphold the stability of this great uni- 
verse ; but it would go to heighten that 
wisdom inconceivably, if while equal to the 
magnificent task of maintaining the order 
and harmony of the spheres, it was lavish- 
ing its inexhaustible resources on the beau- 
ties, and varieties, and arrangements, of 
every one scene, however humble, of every 
one field, however narrow, of the creation he 
had formed. It is a cheering evidence of 
the delight he takes in communicating hap- 
piness, that the whole of immensity should 
be so strewed with the habitations of life 
and of intelligence ; but it would surely 
bring home the evidence, with a nearer and 
more affecting impression, to every bosom, 
did we know, that at the very time his be- 
nignant regard took in the mighty circle of 
created beings, there was not a single fami- 
ly overlooked by him, and that every indi- 
vidual in every corner of his dominions, 
was as effectually seen to, as if the object 
of an exclusive and undivided care. It is 
our imperfection, that we cannot give our 
attention to more than one object at one 
and the same instant of time ; but surely it 
would elevate our every idea of the perfec- 
tions of God, did we know, that while his 
comprehensive mind could grasp the whole 
amplitude of nature, to the very outer- 
most of its boundaries, he had an attentive 
eye fastened on the very humblest of its ob- 
jects, and pondered every thought of my 
heart, and noticed every footstep of my 
goings, and treasured up in his remem- 
brance every turn and every movement of 
my history. 

And, lastly, to apply this train of senti- 
ment to the matter before us ; let us sup- 
pose that one among the countless myriads 
of worlds, should be visited by a moral 
pestilence, which spread through all its peo- 
ple, and brought them under the doom of a 
law, whose sanctions were unrelenting and 
immutable; it were no disparagement to 
God, should he, by an act of righteous in- 
dignation, sweep this offence away from the 
universe which it delormed — nor should we 
wonder, though, among the multitude of 



in.] 



EXTENT OF DIVINE CONDESCENSION. 



85 



other worlds from which the ear of the Al- 
mighty was regaled with the songs of 
praise, and the incense of a pure adoration 
ascended to his throne, he should leave the 
strayed and solitary world to perish in the 
guilt of its rebellion. But, tell me, oh ! tell 
me, would it not throw the softening of a 
most exquisite tenderness over the charac- 
ter of God, should we see him putting forth 
his every expedient to reclaim to himself 
those children who had wandered away 
from him — and, few as they were when 
compared with the host of his obedient 
worshippers, would it not just impart to his 
attribute of compassion the infinity of the 
Godhead, that, rather than lose the single 
world which had turned to its own way, 
he should send the messengers of peace 
to woo and to welcome it back again ; and, 
if justice demanded so mighty a sacrifice, 
and the law behoved to be so magnified 
and made honourable, tell me whether it 
would not throw a moral sublime over the 
goodness of the Deity, should he lay upon 
his own Son the burden of its atonement, 
that he might again smile upon the world, 
and hold out the sceptre of invitation to all 
its families ? - 

We avow it, therefore, that this infidel 
argument goes to expunge a perfection from 
the character of God. The more we know 
of the extent of nature, should not we have 
the loftier conception of him who sits in 
high authority over the concerns of so wide 
a universe ? But, is it not adding to the 
bright catalogue of his other attributes, to 
say, that, while magnitude does not over- 
power him, minuteness cannot escape him, 
and variety cannot bewilder him ; and that, 
at the very time while the mind of the 
Deity is abroad over the whole vastness of 
creation, there is not one particle of matter, 
there is not one individual principle of ra- 
tional or of animal existence, there is not 
one single world in that expanse which 
teems with them, that his eye does not dis- 
cern as constantly, and his hand does not 
guide as unerringly, and his spirit does not 
watch and care for as vigilantly, as if it 
formed the one and exclusive object of his 
attention. 

The thing is inconceivable to us, whose 
minds are so easily distracted by a number 
of objects; and this is the secret principle 
of the whole infidelity I am now alluding 
to. To bring God to the level of our own 
comprehension, we would clothe him in the 
impotency of a man. We would transfer to 
his wonderful mind all the imperfection of 
our own faculties. W T hen we are taught 
by astronomy, that he has millions of worlds 
to look after, and thus add in one direction 
to the glories of his character; we take 
away from them in another, by saying, that 
each of these worlds must be looked after 
imperfectly. The use that we make of a | 



discovery, which should hasten our every 
conception of God, and humble us into the 
sentiment, that a Being of such mysterious 
elevation is to us unfathomable, is to sit in 
judgment over him, aye, and to pronounce 
such a judgment as degrades him, and keeps 
him down to the standard of our own paltry 
imagination ! We are introduced by modern 
science to a multitude of other suns and of 
other systems; and the perverse interpreta- 
tion we put upon the fact, that God can 
diffuse the benefits of his power and of his 
goodness over such a variety of worlds, is, 
that he cannot, or will not, bestow so much 
goodness on one of those worlds, as a 
professed revelation from Heaven has an- 
nounced to us. While we enlarge the pro- 
vinces of his empire, we tarnish all the glory 
of this enlargement, by saying, he has so 
much to care for, that the care of every one 
province must be less complete, and less 
vigilant, and less effectual, than it would 
otherwise have been. By the discoveries 
of modern science, we multiply the places 
of the creation; but along with this, we 
would impair the attribute of his eye being 
in every place to behold the evil and the 
good; and thus, while we magnify one of 
his perfections, we do it at the expense of 
another ; and to bring him within the grasp 
of our feeble capacity, would deface one of 
the glories of that character, which it is our 
part to adore, as higher than all thought, 
and as greater than all comprehension. 

The objection we are discussing, I shall 
state again in a single sentence. Since 
astronomy has unfolded to us such a num- 
ber of worlds, it is not likely that God would 
pay so much attention to this one world, 
and set up such wonderful provisions for its 
benefit, as are announced to us in the Chris- 
tian Revelation. This objection will have 
received its answer, if we can meet it by 
the following position: — that God, in ad- 
dition to the bare faculty of dwelling on 
a multiplicity of objects at one and the 
same time, has this faculty in such wonder- 
ful perfection that he can attend as fully 
and provide as richly, and manifest all his 
attributes as illustriously, on every one of 
these objects, as if the rest had no existence, 
and no place whatever in his government 
or in his thoughts. For the evidence of this 
position, we appeal, in the first place, to the 
personal history of each individual among 
you. Only grant us, that God never loses 
sight of any one thing he has created, and 
that no created thing can continue either to 
be or to act independently of him ; and then, 
even upon the face of this world, humble 
as it is on the great scale of astronomy, how 
widely diversified and how multiplied into 
many thousand distinct exercises, is the at- 
tention of God! His eye is upon every 
hour of my existence. His spirit is inti- 
mately present with every thought of my 



86 



EXTENT OF DIVINE CONDESCENSION. 



[DISC. 



heart. His inspiration gives birth to every 
purpose within me. His hand impresses a 
direction on every footstep of my goings. 
Every breath I inhale, is drawn by an en- 
ergy which God deals out to me. This 
body, which, upon the slightest derange- 
ment, would become the prey of death, or 
of woful suffering, is now at ease, because 
he at this moment is warding off from me 
a thousand dangers, and upholding the thou- 
sand movements of its complex and delicate 
machinery. His presiding influence keeps 
by me through the whole current of my 
restless and ever changing history. When 
I walk by the way side, he is along with 
me. When I enter into company, amid all 
my forgetfulness of him, he never forgets 
me. In the silent watches of the night, when 
my eyelids have closed, and my spirit has 
sunk into unconsciousness, the observant 
eye of him who never slumbers, is upon 
me. I cannot fly from his presence. Go 
where I will, he tends me, and watches me, 
and cares for me ; and the same being who 
is now at work in the remotest domains of 
Nature and of Providence, is also at my 
right hand to eke out to me every moment 
of my being, and to uphold me in the exer- 
cise of all my feelings, and of all my faculties. 

Now, what God is doing with me, he is 
doing with every distinct individual of this 
world's population. The intimacy of his 
presence, and attention, and care, reaches 
to one and to all of them. With a mind un- 
burdened by the vastness of all its other 
concerns, he can prosecute, without distrac- 
tion, the government and guardianship of 
every one son and daughter of the species. — 
And is it for us, in the face of all this expe- 
rience, ungratefully to draw a limit around 
the perfections of God ? — to aver, that the 
multitude of other worlds has withdrawn 
any portion of his benevolence from the one 
we occupy? — or that he, whose eye is upon 
every separate family of the earth, would 
not lavish all the riches of his unsearchable 
attributes on some high plan of pardon and 
immortality, in behalf of its countless gene- 
rations? 

But, secondly, were the mind of God so 
fatigued, and so occupied with the care of 
other worlds, as the objection presumes him 
to be, should we not see some traces of ne- 
glect, or of carelessness, in his management 
of ours? Should we not behold, in many a 
field of observation, the evidence of its mas- 
ter being overcrowded with the variety of 
his other engagements? A man oppressed 
by a multitude of business, would simplify 
and reduce the work of any new concern 
that was devolved upon him. Now, point 
out a single mark of God being thus op- 
pressed. Astronomy has laid open to us so 
many realms of creation, which were before 
unheard of. that the world we inhabit shrinks 
into one remote and solitary province of his 



wide monarchy. Tell me, then, if, in any 
one field of this province, which man has 
access to, you witness a single indication 
of God sparing himself— of God reduced to 
languor by the weight of his other employ- 
ments — of God sinking under the burden 
of that vast superintendence which lies upon 
him — of God being exhausted, as one of 
ourselves would be, by any number of con- 
cerns, however great, by any variety of 
them, however manifold ? and do you not 
perceive, in that mighty profusion of wis- 
dom and of goodness, which is scattered 
every where around us, that the thoughts 
of this unsearchable Being are not as our 
thoughts, nor his ways as our ways ? 

My time does not suffer me to dwell on 
this topic, because, before I conclude, I 
must hasten to another illustration. But 
when I look abroad on the wondrous scene 
that is immediately before me — and see, 
that in every direction it is a scene of the 
most various and unwearied activity — and 
expatiate on all the beauties of that garni- 
ture by which it is adorned, and on all the 
prints of design and of benevolence which 
abound in it — and think, that the same God, 
who holds the universe, with its every sys- 
tem, in the hollow of his hand, pencils 
every flower, and gives nourishment to 
every blade of grass—and actuates the 
movements of every living thing — and is 
not disabled, by the weight of his other 
cares, from enriching the humble depart- 
ment of nature I occupy, with charms and 
accommodations, of the most unbounded 
variety — then, surely, if a message, bear- 
ing every mark of authenticity, should pro- 
fess to come to me from God, and inform 
me of his mighty doings for the happiness 
of our species, it is not for me, in the face 
of all this evidence, to reject it as a tale of 
imposture, because astronomers have told 
me that he has so many other worlds and. 
other orders of beings to attend to — and, 
when I think that it were a deposition of 
him from his supremacy over the creatures 
he has formed, should a single sparrow 
fall to the ground without his appointment, 
then let science and sophistry try to cheat 
me of my comfort as they may — I will not 
let go the anchor of my confidence in God 
— I will not be afraid, for I am of mor 
value than many sparrows. 

But thirdly, it was the telescope, that by 
piercing the obscurity which lies between 
us and distant worlds, put infidelity in pos- 
session of the argument, against which we 
are now contending. But, about the time 
of its invention, another instrument was 
formed, which laid open a scene no less 
wonderful, and rewarded the inquisitive 
spirit of man with a discovery, which serves 
to neutralize the whole of this argument. 
This was the microscope. The one led me 
to see a system in every star. The other 



III.] 



EXTENT OF DIVINE CONDESCENSION. 



87 



leads me to see a world in every atom. 
The one taught me, that this mighty globe, 
with the whole burden of its people, and of 
its countries, is but a grain of sand on the 
high field of immensity. The other teaches 
me, that every grain of sand may harbour 
within it the tribes and the families of a 
busy population. The one told me of the 
insignificance of the world I tread upon. 
The other redeems it from all its insignifi- 
cance ; for it tells me that in the leaves of 
every forest, and in the flowers of every 
garden, and in the waters of every rivulet, 
there are worlds teeming with life, and 
numberless as are the glories of the firma- 
ment. The one has suggested to me, that 
beyond and above all that is visible to man, 
there may lie fields of creation which sweep 
immeasurably along, and carry the impress 
of the Almighty's hand to the remotest 
scenes of the universe. The other suggests 
to me, that within and beneath all that mi- 
nuteness which the aided eye of man has 
been able to explore, there may be a region 
of invisibles ; and that could we draw aside 
the mysterious curtain which shrouds it 
from our senses, we might there see a 
theatre of as many wonders as astronomy 
has unfolded, a universe within the com- 
pass of a point so small, as to elude all the 
powers of the microscope, but where the 
wonder working God finds room for the 
exercise of all his attributes, where he can 
raise another mechanism of worlds, and fill 
and animate them all with the evidences of 
his glory. 

Now, mark how all this may be made to 
meet the argument of our infidel astrono- 
mers. By the telescope they have discov- 
ered, that no magnitude, however vast, is 
beyond the grasp of the Divinity. But by 
the microscope we have also discovered, 
that no minuteness, however shrunk from 
the notice of the human eye, is beneath 
the condescension of his regard. Every 
addition to the powers of the one instru- 
ment, extends the limit of his visible do- 
minions. But, by every addition to the 
powers of the other instrument, we see 
each part of them more crowded than be- 
fore, with the wonders of his unwearying 
hand. The one is constantly widening the 
circle of his territory. The other is as con- 
stantly filling up its separate portions, with 
all that is rich, and various, and exquisite. 
In a word, by the one I am told that the 
Almighty is now at work in regions more 
distant than geometry has ever measured, 
and among worlds more manifold than 
' numbers have ever reached. But, by the 
other, I am also told, that, with a mind to 
comprehend the whole, in the vast com- 
pass of its generality, he has also a mind 
to concentrate a close and a separate at- 
tention on each and on all of its particu- 
lars j and that the same God, who sends 



forth an upholding influence among the 
orbs and the movements of astronomy, can 
fill the recesses of every single atom with 
the intimacy of his presence, and travel, in 
all the greatness of his unimpaired attri- 
butes, upon every one spot and corner of 
the universe he has formed. 

They, therefore, who think that God will 
not put forth such a power, and such a 
goodness, and such a condescension, in be- 
half of this world, as are ascribed to him 
in the New Testament, because he has so 
many other worlds to attend to, think of 
him as a man. They confine their view to 
the informations of the telescope, and for- 
get altogether the informations of the other 
instrument. They only find room in their 
minds for his one attribute of a large and 
general superintendance, and keep out of 
their remembrance, the equally impressive 
proofs we have for his other attribute of a 
minute and multiplied attention to all that 
diversity of operations, where it is he that 
worketh all in all. And then I think, that 
as one of the instruments of philosophy 
has heightened our every impression of the 
first of these attributes, so another instru- 
ment has no less heightened our impression 
of the second of them — then I can no longer 
resist the conclusion, that it would be a 
transgression of sound argument, as well 
as a daring of impiety, to draw a limit 
around the doings of this unsearchable 
God — and, should a professed revelation 
from heaven, tell me of an act of conde- 
scension, in behalf of some separate world, 
so wonderful that angels desired to look 
into it, and the Eternal Son had to move 
from his seat of glory to carry it into ac- 
complishment, all I ask is the evidence of 
such a revelation ; for, let it tell me as much 
as it may of God letting himself down for 
the benefit of one single province of his do- 
minions, this is no more than what I see 
lying scattered, in numberless examples, 
before me ; and running through the whole 
line of my recollections ; and meeting me 
in every walk of observation to which I 
can betake myself ; and, now that the mi- 
croscope has unveiled the wonders of an- 
other region, I see strewed around me, with 
a profusion which baffles my every attempt 
to comprehend it, the evidence that there 
is no one portion of the universe of God 
too minute for his notice, nor too humble 
for the visitations of his care. 

As the end of all these illustrations, let 
me bestow a single paragraph on what I 
conceive to be the precise state of this ar- 
gument. 

It is a wonderful thing that God should 
be so unincumbered by the concerns of a 
whole universe, that he can give a constant 
attention to every moment of every indi- 
vidual in this world's population. E Llt ,, 
wonderful as it is, you do not hesitate to 



88 



EXTENT OF DIVINE CONDESCENSION. 



[DISC. 



admit it as true, on the evidence of your 
own recollections. It is a wonderful thing 
that he whose eye is at every instant on so 
many worlds, should have peopled the 
world we inhabit with all the traces of the 
varied, design and benevolence which abound 
in it. But, great as the wonder is, you do 
not allow so much as the shadow of im- 
probability to darken it, for its reality is 
what you actually witness, and you never 
think of questioning the evidence of obser- 
vation. It is wonderful, it is passing won- 
derful, that the same God, whose presence 
is diffused through immensity, and who 
spreads the ample canopy of his adminis- 
tration over all its dwelling-places, should, 
with an energy as fresh and as unexpen- 
ded as if he had only begun the work of 
creation, turn him to the neighbourhood 
around us, and lavish on its every hand- 
breadth, all the exuberance of his goodness, 
and crowd it with the many thousand va- 
rieties of conscious existence. But, be the 
wonder incomprehensible as it may, you 
do not suffer in your mind the burden of a 
single doubt to lie upon it because you do 
not question the report of the miscroscope. 
You do not refuse its information, nor turn 
away from it as an incompetent channel 
of evidence. But to bring it still nearer to 
the point at issue, there are many who 
never looked through a microscope; but 
who rest an implicit faith in all its revela- 
tions; and upon what evidence, I would 
ask? Upon the evidence of testimony — 
upon the credit they give to the authors of 
the books they have read, and the belief 
they put in the record of their observations. 
Now, at this point I make my stand. It is 
wonderful that God should be so interested 
In the redemption of a single world, as to 
jend forth his well-beloved Son upon the 
errand, and he, to accomplish it, should, 
mighty to save, put forth all his strength, 
and travail in the greatness of it. But such 
wonders as these have already multiplied 
upon you ; and when evidence is given of 
their truth, you have resigned your every 
judgment of the unsearchable God, and 
rested in the faith of them. I demand, in 
the name of sound and consistent philoso- 
phy, that you do the same in the matter 
before us — and take it up as a question of 
evidence — and examine that medium of 
testimony through which the miracles and 
informations of the Gospel have come to 
your door — and go not to admit as argu- 
ment here, what would not be admitted as 
argument in any of the analogies of nature 
and observation — and take along with you 
in this field of inquiry, a lesson which you 
should have learned upon other fields — 
even the depth of the riches both of the 
wisdom and the knowledge of God, that 
his judgments are unsearchable, and his 
ways are past finding out. 



I do not enter at all into the positive evi- 
dence for the truth of the Christian Reve- 
lation, my single aim at present being to 
dispose of one of the objections which is 
conceived to stand in the way of it. Let 
me suppose then that this is done to the 
satisfaction of a philosophical inquirer, and 
that the evidence is sustained, and that the 
same mind that is familiarised to all the 
sublimities of natural science, and has been 
in the habit of contemplating God in asso- 
ciation with all the magnificence which is 
around him, shall be brought to submit its 
thoughts to the captivity of the doctrine of 
Christ. Oh ! with what veneration, and 
gratitude, and wonder, should he look on 
the descent of him into this lower world, who 
made all these things, and without whom 
was not any thing made that was made. 
What a grandeur does it throw over every 
step in the redemption of a fallen world, 
to think of its being done by him who un- 
robed him of the glories of so wide a mo- 
narchy, and came to this humblest of its 
provinces, in the disguise of a servant, and 
took upon him the form of our degraded 
species, and let himself down to sorrows 
and to sufferings, and to death, for us. In 
this love of an expiring Saviour to those 
for whom in agony he poured out his soul, 
there is a height, and a depth, and a length, 
and a breadth, more than I can compre- 
hend; and let me never, never from this 
moment neglect so great a salvation, or lose 
my hold of an atonement, made sure by 
him who cried, that it was finished, and 
brought in an everlasting righteousness. It 
was not the visit of an empty parade that 
he made to us. It was for the accomplish- 
ment of some substantial purpose ; and, if 
that purpose is announced, and stated to 
consist in his dying the just for the unjust, 
that he might bring us unto God, let us never 
doubt of our acceptance in that way of 
communication with our Father in heaven, 
which he hath opened and made known 
to us. In taking to that way, let us follow 
his every direction with that humility which 
a sense of all this wonderful condescension 
is fitted to inspire. Let us forsake all that 
he bids us forsake. Let us do all that he 
bids us do. Let us give ourselves up to his 
guidance with the docility of children, 
overpowered by a kindness that we never 
merited, and a love that is unequalled by 
all the perverseness and all the ingrati- 
tude of our stubborn nature — for what 
shall we render unto him for such myste- 
rious benefits — to him who has thus been 
mindful of us— to him who thus has deigned 
to visit us ? 

But the whole of this argument is not 
yet exhausted. We have scarcely entered-, 
on the defence that is commonly made 
against the plea which infidelity rests on 
the wonderful extent of the universe of 



IV.J 



The knowledge of man's moral history. 



69 



God, and the insignificancy of our assigned 
portion of it. The way in which we have 
attempted to dispose of this plea, is by in- 
sisting on the evidence that is every where 
around us, of God combining with the large- 
ness of a vast and mighty superintendence, 
which reaches the outskirts of creation, and 
spreads over all its amplitudes — the faculty 
of bestowing as much attention, and exer- 
cising as complete and manifold a wisdom, 
and lavishing as profuse and inexhaustible 
a goodness on each of its humblest depart- 
ments, as if it formed the whole extent of 
his territory. 

In the whole of this argument we have 
looked upon the earth as isolated from the 
rest of the universe altogether. But ac- 
cording to the way in which the astrono- 
mical objection is commonly met, the earth 
is not viewed as in a state of detachment 
from the other worlds, and the other orders 
of being which God has called into exist- 
ence. It is looked upon as the member of 
a more extended system. It is associated 
with the magnificence of a moral empire, 
as wide as the kingdom of nature. It is not 
merely asserted, what in our last Discourse 
has been already done, that for any thing 
we can know by reason, the plan of re- 
demption may have its influences and its 
bearings on those creatures of God who 
people other regions, and occupy other 
fields in the immensity of his dominions ; 
that to argue, therefore, on this plan being 
instituted for the single benefit of the world 
we live in, and of the species to which we 
belong, is a mere presumption of the infi- 
del himself; and that the objection he rears 
on it, must fall to the ground, when the 
vanity of the presumption is exposed. The 
Christian apologist thinks he can go fur- 
ther than this — that he cannot merely ex- 
pose the utter baselessness of the infidel 
assertion, but that he has positive ground 
for erecting an opposite and a confronting 
assertion in its place — and that after having 
neutralised their position, by showing the 



entire absence of all observation in its be- 
half, he can pass on to the distinct affirma- 
tive testimony of the Bible. 

We do think that this lays open a very 
interesting track, not of wild and fanciful, 
but of most legitimate and sober-minded 
speculation. And anxious as we are to put 
every thing that bears upon the Christian 
argument into all its lights ; and fearless as 
we feel for the result of a most thorough sift- 
ing of it ; and thinking as we do think it, 
the foulest scorn that any pigmy philoso- 
pher of the day should mince his ambigu- 
ous scepticism to a set of giddy and igno- 
rant admirers, or that a half-learned and 
superficial public should associate with the 
christian priesthood, the blindness and the 
bigotry of a sinking cause — with these feel- 
ings, we are not disposed to blink a single 
question that may be started on the subject 
of the Christian evidences. There is not 
one of its parts or bearings which needs the 
shelter of a disguise thrown over it. Let 
the priests of another faith ply their pruden- 
tial expedients, and look so wise and so 
wary in the execution of them. But Chris- 
tianity stands in a higher and a firmer atti- 
tude. The defensive armour of a shrinking 
or timid policy does not suit her. Hers is 
the naked majesty of truth ; and with all 
the grandeur of age, but with none of its 
infirmities, has she come down to us, and 
gathered new strength from the battles she 
has won in the many controversies of many 
generations. With such a religion as this 
there is nothing to hide. All should be 
above boards. And the broadest light of 
day should be made fully and freely to cir- 
culate throughout all the secrecies. But 
secrets she has none. To her belong the 
frankness and the simplicity of conscious 
greatness ; and whether she grapple it with 
the pride of philosophy, or stand in fronted 
opposition to the prejudices of the multitude, 
she does it upon her own strength, and 
spurns all the' props and all the auxiliaries 
of superstition away from her. 



DISCOURSE IV. 

On the Knowledge of Man's Moral History in the Distant Places of Creation. 

"Which things the angels desire to look into."— 1 Peter i. 12. 



There is a limit, across which man can- 
not carry any one of his perceptions, and 
from the ulterior of which he cannot gather a 
single observation to guide or to inform him. 
While he keeps by the objects which are 
near, he can get the knowledge of them 
conveyed to his mind through the ministry 
of several of the senses. He can feel a sub- 
M 



stance that is within reach of his hand. He 
can smell a flower that is presented to him. 
He can taste the food that is before him. 
He can hear a sound of certain pitch and 
intensity ; and, so much does this sense of 
hearing widen his intercourse with exter- 
nal nature, that, from the distance of miles, 
it can bring him in an occasional intimation. 



90 



THE KNOWLEDGE OF MAN'S MORAL HISTORY. 



[DISC. 



But of all the tracks of conveyance which 
God has been pleased to open up between 
the mind of man, and the theatre by which 
he is surrounded, there is none by which 
he so multiplies his acquaintance with 
the rich and the varied creation on every 
side of him, as by the organ of the eye. It 
is this which gives to him his loftiest com- 
mand over the scenery of nature. It is this 
by which so broad a range of observation 
is submitted to him. It is this which ena- 
bles him, by the act of a single moment, to 
send an exploring look over the surface of an 
ample territory, to crowd his mind with the 
whole assembly of its objects, and to fill his 
vision with those countless hues which di- 
versify and adorn it. It is this which carries 
him abroad over all that is sublime in the 
immensity of distance ; which sets him as 
it were on an elevated platform, from 
whence he may cast a surveying glance 
over the arena of innumerable worlds ; 
which spreads before him so mighty a pro- 
vince of contemplation, that the earth he 
inhabits, only appears to furnish him with 
the pedestal on which he may stand, and 
from which he may descry the wonders of 
all that magnificence which the Divinity 
has poured so abundantly around him. It 
is by the narrow outlet of the eye, that the 
mind of man takes its excursive flight over 
those golden tracks, where, in all the ex- 
haustlessness of creative wealth, lie scatter- 
ed the suns, and the systems of astronomy. 
But oh ! how good a thing it is, and how be- 
coming well, for the philosopher to be 
humble even amid the proudest march of hu- 
man discovery, and the sublimest triumphs 
of the human understanding, when he 
thinks of that unsealed barrier, beyond 
which no power, either of eye or of tele- 
scope, shall ever carry him : when he thinks 
that on the other side of it, there is a height, 
and a depth, and a length, and a breadth, 
to which the whole of this concave and 
visible firmament dwindles into the insig- 
nificancy of an atom — and above all, how 
ready should he be to cast his every lofty 
imagination away from him, when he 
thinks of the God, who, on the simple foun- 
dation of his word, has reared the whole 
of this stately architecture, and, by the 
force of his preserving hand, continues to 
uphold it; aye, and should the word again 
come out from him, that this earth shall 
pass away, and a portion of the heavens 
which are around it, shall again fall back 
into the annihilation from which he at first 
summoned them, what an impressive re- 
buke does it bring on the swelling vanity 
of science, to think that the whole field of 
its most ambitious enterprises may be swept 
away altogether, and there remain before 
the eye of him who sitteth on the throne, 
an untravelled immensity, which he hath 
filled with innumerable splendours, and 



over the whole face of which he hath in- 
scribed the evidence of his high attributes, 
in all their might, and in all their manifes- 
tations. 

But man has a great deal more to keep 
him humble of his understanding, than a 
mere sense of that boundary which skirts 
and terminates the material field of his 
contemplations. He ought also to feel 
how within that boundary, the vast ma- 
jority of things is mysterious and unknown 
to him ; that even in the inner chamber of 
his own consciousness, where so much lies 
hidden from the observation of others, there 
is also, to himself, a little world of incom- 
prehensibles ; that if stepping beyond the 
limits of this familiar home, he look no 
further than to the members of his family, 
there is much in the cast and the colour of 
every mind that is above his powers of di- 
vination ; that in proportion as he recedes 
from the centre of his own personal expe- 
rience, there is a cloud of ignorance and 
secrecy, which spreads, and thickens, and 
throws a deep and impenetrable veil over 
the intricacies of every one department of 
human contemplation; that of all around 
him his knowledge is naked and superficial, 
and confined to a few of those more conspicu- 
ous lineaments which strike upon his senses; 
that the whole face both of nature and of 
society, presents him with questions which 
he cannot unriddle, and tells him how be- 
neath the surface of all that the eye can 
rest upon, there lies the profoundness of a 
most unsearchable latency; aye, and should 
he in some lofty enterprise of thought, leave 
this world, and shoot afar into those tracks of 
speculation which astronomy has opened — 
should he, baffled by the mysteries which be- 
set his every footstep upon earth attempt an 
ambitious flight towards the mysteries of 
heaven — let him go, but let the justness of a 
pious and philosophical modesty go along 
with him; let him forget not, that from the mo- 
ment his mind has taken its ascending way for 
a few little miles above the world he treads 
upon, his every sense abandons'him but one — 
that number, and motion, and magnitude, 
and figure, make up all the barrenness of its 
elementary informations — that these orbs 
have sent him scarce another message, than 
told by their feeble glimmering upon his 
eye, the simple fact of their existence— that 
he sees not the landscape of other worlds — 
that he knows not the moral system of any 
one of them — nor athwart the long and 
trackless vacancy which lies between, does 
there fall upon his listening ear, the hum of 
their mighty populations. 

But the knowledge which he cannot 
fetch up himself from the obscurity of this 
wondrous but untravelled scene, by the ex- 
ercise of any one of his own senses, might 
be fetched to him by the testimony of a 
competent messenger. Conceive a native 



IV.] 



THE KNOWLEDGE OF MAN'S MORAL HISTORY. 



91 



of one of these planetary mansions to light 
upon our world, and all we should require, 
would be, to be satisfied of his credentials, 
that we may tack our faith to every point 
of information he had to offer us. With the 
solitary exception of what we have been 
enabled to gather by the instruments of 
astronomy, there is not one of his commu- 
nications about the place he came from, on 
which we possess any means at all of con- 
fronting him ; and, therefore, could he only 
appear before us invested with the charac- 
ters of truth, we should never think of any 
thing else than taking up the whole matter 
of his testimony just as he brought it to us. 

It were well had a sound philosophy 
schooled its professing disciples to the same 
kind of acquiescence in another message, 
which has actually come to the world ; and 
has told us of matters still more remote 
from every power of unaided observation ; 
and has been sent from a more sublime and 
mysterious distance, even from that God 
of whom it is said, that " clouds and dark- 
ness are the habitation of his throne ;" and 
treating of a theme so lofty and so inacces- 
sible, as the counsels of that Eternal Spirit, 
" whose goings forth are of old, even from 
everlasting," challenges of man that he 
should submit his every thought to the au- 
thority of this high communication. O ! 
had the philosophers of the day known as 
well as their great Master, how to draw the 
vigorous land-mark which verges the field 
of legitimate discovery, they should have 
seen when it is that philosophy becomes 
vain, and science is falsely so called ; and 
how it is, that when philosophy is true to 
her principles, she shuts up her faithful 
votary to the Bible, and makes him willing 
to count all but loss, for the knowledge of 
Jesus Christ, and of him crucified. 

But let it be well observed, that the object 
of this message is not to convey information 
to us about the state of these planetary re- 
gions. This is not the matter with which 
it is fraught. It is a message from the throne 
of God to this rebellious province of his do- 
minions ; and the purpose of it is, to reveal 
the fearful extent of our guilt and of our dan- 
ger, and to lay before us the overtures of 
reconciliation. Were a similar message 
sent from the metropolis of a mighty em- 
pire, to one of its remote and revolutionary 
districts, we should not look to it for much 
information about the state or economy of 
the intermediate provinces. This were a 
departure from the topic on hand — though 
still there may chance to be some incidental 
allusions to the extent and resources of the 
whole monarchy, to the existence of a simi- 
lar spirit of rebellion in other quarters of the 
land, or to the general principle of loyalty 
by which it was pervaded. Some casual 
references of this kind may be inserted in 
such a proclamation, or they may not — 



and it is with this precise feeling of ambi- 
guity that we open the record of that em- 
bassy which has been sent us from heaven, 
to see if we can gather any thing there, 
about other places of the creation, to 
meet the objections of the infidel astrono- 
mer. But, while we pursue this object, let 
us have a care not to push the speculation 
beyond the limits of the written testimony ; 
let us keep a just and a steady eye on the 
actual boundary of our knowledge, that, 
throughout every distinct step of our argu- 
ment, we might preserve that chaste and 
unambitious spirit, which characterizes the 
philosophy of him who explored these dis- 
tant heavens, and, by the force of his genius, 
unravelled the secret of that wondrous me- 
chanism which upholds them. 

The informations of the Bible upon this 
subject, are of two sorts — that from which 
we confidently gather the fact, that the 
history of the redemption of our species is 
known in other and distant places of the 
creation — and that, from which we indis- 
tinctly guess at the fact, that the redemption 
itself may stretch beyond the limits of the 
world we occupy. 

And, here it may shortly be adverted to, 
that, though we know little or nothing of 
the moral and theological economy of the 
other planets, Ave are not to infer, that the 
beings who occupy these widely extended 
regions, even though not higher than we 
in the scale of understanding, know little 
of ours. Our first parents, ere they com- 
mitted that act by which they brought them- 
selves and their posterity into the need of 
redemption, had frequent and familiar in- 
tercourse with God. He walked with them 
in the garden of paradise; and there did 
angels hold their habitual converse; and, 
should the same unblotted innocence which 
charmed and attracted these superior beings 
to the haunts of Eden, be perpetuated in 
every planet but our own, then might each 
of them be the scene of high and heavenly 
communications, an open way for the mes- 
sengers of God be kept up with them all, 
and their inhabitants be admitted to a share 
in the themes and contemplations of angels, 
and have their spirit exercised on those 
things, of which we are told that the angels 
desired to look into them ; and thus, as we 
talk of the public mind of a city, or the 
public mind of an empire — by the well-fre- 
quented avenues of a free and ready cir- 
culation, a public mind might be formed 
throughout the whole extent of God's sin- 
less and intelligent creation — and, just as 
we often read of the eyes of all Europe 
being turned to the one spot where some 
affair of eventful importance is going on, 
there might be the eyes of a whole universe 
turned to the one world, where rebellion 
against the Majesty of heaven had planted 
it3 standard; and for the re-admission of 



02 



THE KNOWLEDGE OF MAN'S MORAL HISTORY. 



[DISC. 



which within the circle of his fellowship, 
God, whose justice was inflexible, but whose 
mercy he had, by some plan of mysterious 
wisdom, made to rejoice over it, was put- 
ting forth all the might, and travelling in all 
the greatness of the attributes which belong 
to him. 

But, for the full understanding of this ar- 
gument, it must be remarked, that, while in 
our exiled habitation, where all is darkness 
and rebellion, and enmity, the creature en- 
grosses every heart, and our affections, 
when they shift at all, only wander from 
one fleeting vanity to another, it is not so 
in the habitations* of the unfallen. There, 
every desire and every movement is subor- 
dinated to God. He is seen in all that form- 
ed, and in all that is spread around them — 
and, amid the fulness of that delight with 
which they expatiate over the good and the 
fair of this wondrous universe, the anima- 
ting charm which pervades their every 
contemplation, is that they behold, on each 
visible thing, the impress of the mind that 
conceived, and of the hand that made and 
that upholds it. Here, God is banished from 
the thoughts of every natural man, and by 
a firm and constantly maintained act of 
usurpation, do the things of sense and of 
time wield an entire ascendancy. There 
God is all in all. They walk in his light. 
They rejoice in the beatitudes of his pre- 
sence. The veil is from off their eyes, 
and they see the character of a presiding 
Divinity in every scene, and in every event 
to which the Divinity has given birth. It 
is this which stamps a glory and an im- 
portance on the whole field of their contem- 
plations ; and when they see a new evolution 
in the history of created things, the reason 
they bend towards it so attentive an eye, is, 
that it speaks to their understanding some 
new evolution in the purposes of God ; some 
new manifestation of his high attributes — 
some new and interesting step in the his- 
tory of his sublime administration. 

Now, we ought to be aware how it takes 
off, not from the intrinsic weight, but from 
the actual impression of our argument, that 
this devotedness to God which reigns in 
other places of the creation, this interest in 
him as the constant and essential principle 
of all enjoyment; this concern in the un- 
taintedness of his glory; this delight in the 
surve}' of his perfections and his doings, 
are what the men of our corrupt and dark- 
ened world cannot sympathize with. 

But however little we may enter into it, 
the Bible tells us by many intimations, that 
among those creatures who have not fallen 
from their allegiance, nor departed from the 
living God, God is their all — that love to 
him sits enthroned in their hearts, and fills 
them with all the ecstacy of an overwhelm- 
ing affection — that a sense of grandeur 
never so elevates their souls, as w. en they 



look at the might and majesty of the Eter- 
nal — that no field of clou ess transparency 
so enchants them by the blissfulness of its 
visions, as when at the shrine of infinite 
and unspotted holiness, they bend them- 
selves in raptured adoration — that no beauty 
so fascinates and attracts them, as does that 
moral beauty which throws a softening lus- 
tre over the awfulness of the Godhead — 
in a word, that the image of his character 
is ever present to their contemplations, and 
the unceasing joy of their sinless existence 
lies in the knowledge and the admiration 
of the Deity. 

Let us put forth an effort, and keep a 
steady hold of this consideration ; for the 
deadness of our earthly imaginations makes 
an effort necessary ; and we shall perceive, 
that though the world we live in were the 
alone theatre of redemption, there is a 
something in the redemption itself that is 
fitted to draw the eye of an arrested uni- 
verse towards it. Surely, surely, where de- 
light in God is the constant enjoyment, and 
the earnest intelligent contemplation of God 
is the constant exercise, there is nothing in 
the whole compass of nature or of history, 
that can so set his adoring myriads upon 
the gaze, as some new and wondrous evolu- 
tion of the character of God. Now this is 
found in the plan of our redemption; nor, 
do I see how in any transaction between 
the great Father of existence, and the chil- 
dren who have sprung from him, the moral 
attributes of the Deity could, if I may so 
express myself, be put to so severe and so 
delicate a test. It is true, that the great 
matters of sin and of salvation fall without 
impression, on the heavy ears of a listless 
and alienated world. But they who, to use 
the language of the Bible, are light in the 
Lord, look otherwise at these things. They 
see sin in all its malignity, and salvation in 
all its mysterious greatness. Aye, and it 
would put them on the stretch of all their 
faculties, when they saw rebellion lifting 
up its standard against the Majesty of hea- 
ven, and the truth and the justice of God 
embarked on the threatenings he had ut- 
tered against all the doers of iniquity, and 
the honours of that august throne, which 
has the firm pillars of immutability to rest 
upon, linked with the fulfilment of the law 
that had come out from it ; and when no- 
thing else was looked for, but that God, by 
putting forth the power of his wrath, should 
accomplish his every denunciation, and vin- 
dicate the inflexibility of his government, 
and by one sweeping deed of vengeance, 
assert in the sight of ail his creatures, the 
sovereignty which belongeth to him — Oh ! 
with what desire must they have pondered 
on his ways, when amid the urgency of all 
these demands which looked so high and 
so indispensable, they saw the unfoldings 
of the attribute of mercy — and how the 



iv.] 



THE KNOWLEDGE OF MAN'S MORAL HISTORY. 



93 



supreme Lawgiver was bending upon his 
guilty creatures an eye of tenderness— and 
how In his profound and unsearchable wis- 
dom, he was devising for them some plan 
of restoration — and how the eternal Son had 
to move from his dwelling-place in heaven, 
to carry it forward through all the difficul- 
ties by which it was encompassed — and 
how, after, by the virtue of his mysterious 
sacrifice, he had magnified the glory of 
every other perfection, he made mercy re- 
joice over them all, and threw open a way 
by which we sinful and polluted wanderers 
might, with the whole lustre of the Divine 
character untarnished, be re-admitted into 
fellowship with God, and be again brought 
back within the circle of his loyal and affec- 
tionate family. 

Now, the essential character of such a 
transaction, viewed as a manifestation of 
God, does not hang upon the number of 
worlds, over which this sin and this salva- 
tion may have extended. We know that 
over this one world such an economy of 
wisdom and of mercy is instituted — and, 
even should this be the only world that is 
embraced by it, the moral display of the 
Godhead is mainly and substantially the 
same, as if it reached throughout the whole 
of that habitable extent which the science 
of astronomy has made known to us. By 
the disobedience of this one world, the law 
was trampled on ; and, in the business of 
making truth and mercy to meet, and have 
a harmonious accomplishment on the men 
of this world, the dignity of God was put 
to the same trial ; the justice of God ap- 
peared to lay the same immoveable barrier ; 
the wisdom of God had to clear a way 
through the same difficulties ; the forgive- 
ness of God had to find the same myste- 
rious conveyance to the sinners of a solitary 
world, as to the sinners of half a universe. 
The extent of the field upon which this 
question was decided, has no more influence 
on the question itself, than the figure or the 
dimensions of that field of combat, on which 
some great political question was fought, 
has on the importance or on the moral 
principles of the controversy that gave rise 
to it. This objection about the narrowness 
of the theatre, carries along with it all the 
grossness of materialism. To the eye of 
spiritual and intelligent beings, it is nothing. 
In their view, the redemption of a sinful 
world derives its chief interest from the 
display it gives of the mind and purposes 
of the Deity — and, should that world be but 
a single speck in the immensity of the 
works of God, the only way in which this 
affects their estimate of him, is to magnify 
his loving kindness — who rather than lose 
one solitary world of the myriads he has 
formed, would lavish all the riches of his 
beneficence and of his wisdom on the re- 
covery of its guilty population. 



Now, though it must be admitted that the 
Bible does not speak clearly or decisively 
as to the proper effect of redemption being 
extended to other worlds; it speaks most 
clearly and most decisively about the know- 
ledge of it being disseminated among other 
orders of created intelligence than our own. 
But if the contemplation of God be their 
supreme enjoyment, then the very circum- 
stance of our redemption being known to 
them, may invest it, even though it be but 
the redemption of one solitary world, with 
an importance as wide as the universe itself. 
It may spread among the hosts of immen- 
sity a new illustration of the character of 
Him who is all their praise, and looking to- 
ward whom every energy within them is 
moved to the exercise of a deep and de- 
lighted admiration. The scene of the trans- 
action may be narrow in point of material 
extent ; while in the transaction itself there 
may be such a moral dignity, as to blazon 
the perfections of the Godhead over the 
face of creation ; and from the manifested 
glory of the Eternal, to send forth a tide of 
ecstacy, and of high gratulation, through- 
out the whole extent of his dependent pro- 
vinces. 

I will not, in proof of the position, that 
the history of our redemption is known in 
other and distant places of creation, and 
is matter of deep interest and feeling among 
other orders of created intelligence — I will 
not put down all the quotations which 
might be assembled together upon this ar- 
gument. It is an impressive circumstance, 
than when Moses and Elias made a visit to 
our Saviour on the mount of transfigura- 
tion, and appeared in glory from heaven, 
the topic they brought along with them, 
and with which they were fraught, was the 
decease he was going to accomplish at Je- 
rusalem. And however insipid the things 
of our salvation may be to an earthly un- 
derstanding ; we are made to know, that in 
the sufferings of Christ, and the glory which 
should follow, there is matter to attract the 
notice of celestial spirits, for these are the 
very things, says the Bible, which angels 
desire to look into. And however listlessly 
we, the dull and grovelling children of an 
exiled family, may feel about the perfec- 
tions of the Godhead, and the display of 
those perfections in the economy of the 
Gospel, it is intimated to us in the book of 
God's message, that the creation has its 
districts and its provinces ; and we accord- 
ingly read of thrones, and dominions, and 
principalities, and powers; and whether 
these terms denote the separate regions of 
government, or the beings who, by a com- 
mission granted from the sanctuary of hea- 
ven, sit in delegated authority over them — 
even in their eyes the mystery of Christ 
stands arrayed in all the splendour of un- 
searchable riches ; for we are told that this 



94 



THE KNOWLEDGE OF MAN'S MORAL HISTORY. 



[DISC. 



mystery was revealed for the very intent, 
that unto the principalities and powers in 
heavenly places, might be made known by 
the church, the manifold wisdom of God. 
And while we, whose prospect reaches not 
beyond the narrow limits of the corner we 
occupy, look on the dealings of God in the 
world, as carrying in them all the insignifi- 
cancy of a provincial transaction ; God him- 
self, whose eye reaches to places which our 
eye hath not seen, nor our ear heard of, 
neither hath it entered into the imagination 
of our heart to conceive, stamps a univer- 
sality on the whole matter of the Christian 
salvation, by such revelations as the fol- 
lowing : That he is to gather together in 
one all things in Christ, both which are in 
heaven, and which are in earth, even in 
him — and that at the name of Jesus every 
knee should bow, of things in heaven, and 
things in earth, and things under the earth — 
and that by him God reconciled all things 
unto himself, whether they be things in 
earth, or things in heaven. 

We will not say in how far some of these 
passages extend the proper effect of that 
redemption which is by Christ Jesus, to 
other quarters of the universe of God ; 
but they at least go to establish a widely 
disseminated knowledge of this transaction 
among the other orders of created intelli- 
gence. And they give us a distant glimpse 
of something more extended. They present 
a faint opening, through which may be seen 
some few traces of a wider and a nobler 
dispensation. They bring before us a dim 
transparency, on the other side of which 
the images of an obscure magnificence daz- 
zle indistinctly upon the eye ; and tell us 
that in the economy of redemption, there is 
a grandeur commensurate to all that is 
known of the other works and purposes of 
the Eternal. They offer us no details; and 
man, who ought not to attempt a wisdom 
above that which is written, should never 
put forth his hand to the drapery of that 
impenetrable curtain which God in his mys- 
terious wisdom has spread over those ways, 
of which it is but a very small portion that 
we know of them. But certain it is, that 
we know as much of them from the Bible; 
and the infidel, with all the pride of his 
boasted astronomy, knows so little of them, 
from any power of observation, that the 
baseless argument of his, on which we have 
dwelt so long, is overborne in the light of 
all that positive evidence which God has 
poured around the record of his own testi- 
mony, and even in the light of its more 
obscure and casual intimations. 

The minute and variegated details of the 
way in which this wondrous economy is 
extended, God has chosen to withhold from 
us ; but he has oftener than once made to 
us a broad and a general announcement of 
its dignity. He does not tell us whether 



the fountain opened in the house of Judah, 
for sin and for uncleanness, send forth its 
healing streams to other worlds than our 
own. He does not tell us the extent of the 
atonement. But he tells us that the atone- 
ment itself, known as it is among the my- 
riads of the celestial, forms the high song 
of eternity; that the Lamb who was slain, 
is surrounded by the acclamations of one 
wide and universal empire ; that the might 
of his wondrous achievements, spreads a 
tide of gratulation over the multitudes who 
are about his throne ; and that there never 
ceases to ascend from the worshippers of 
him who washed us from our sins in his 
blood, a voice loud as from numbers with- 
out number, sweet as from blessed voices 
uttering joy, when heaven rings jubilee, and 
loud hosannas fill the eternal regions. 

"And I beheld, and I heard the voice of 
many angels round about the throne, and 
the number of them was ten thousand times 
ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; 
saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the 
Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and 
riches, and wisdom, and strength, and glory, 
and honour, and blessing. And every crea- 
ture which is in heaven, and on earth, and 
under the earth, and such as are in the sea, 
and all that are in them, heard I saying, 
Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, 
be unto him that sitteth on the throne, and 
unto the Lamb, forever and ever." 

A king might have the whole of his reign 
crowded with the enterprises of glory; 
and by the might of his arms, and the wis- 
dom of his counsels might win the first 
reputation among the potentates of the 
world; and be idolized throughout all his 
provinces, for the wealth and the security 
that he had spread around them — and still 
it is conceivable, that by the act of a sin- 
gle day in behalf of a single family; by 
some soothing visitation of tenderness to a 
poor and solitary cottage; by some deed 
of compassion, which conferred enlarge- 
ment and relief on one despairing sufferer ; 
by some graceful movement of sensibility 
at a tale of wretchedness ; by some noble 
effort of self-denial, in virtue of which he 
subdued his every purpose of revenge, and 
spread the mantle of a generous oblivion 
over the fault of the man who has insulted 
and aggrieved him ; above all, by an exer- 
cise of pardon so skilfully administered, as 
that instead of bringing him down to a state 
of defencelessness against the provocation 
of future injuries, it threw a deeper sacred- 
ness over him, and stamped a more invio- 
lable dignity than ever on his person and 
character :— why, my brethren, on the 
strength of one such performance, done in 
a single hour, and reaching no further in 
its immediate effects than to one house, or 
to one individual, it is a most possible 
thing, that the highest monarch upon earth 



IV.] 



THE KNOWLEDGE OF MAN'S MORAL HISTORY. 



95 



might draw such a lustre around him as 
would eclipse the renown of all his public 
achievements — and that such a display of 
magnanimity, or of worth, beaming from 
the secrecy of his familiar moments, might 
waken a more cordial veneration in every 
bosom, than all the splendour of his con- 
spicuous history — aye, and that it might 
pass down to posterity, as a more enduring 
monument of greatness, and raise him fur- 
ther by its moral elevation above the level 
of ordinary praise ; and when he passes in 
review before the men of distant ages, may 
this deed of modest, gentle, unobtrusive vir- 
tue, be at all times appealed to, as the 
most sublime and touching memorial of his 
name. 

In like manner did the King eternal, 
immortal, and invisible, surrounded as he is 
with the splendours of a wide and everlast- 
ing monarchy, turn him to our humble 
habitation ; and the foot-steps of God mani- 
fest in the flesh, have been on the narrow 
spot of ground we occupy; and small 
though our mansion be, amid the orbs and 
the systems of immensity, hither hath the 
King of glory bent his mysterious way, and 
entered the tabernacle of men, and in the 
disguise of a servant did he sojourn for 
years under the roof which canopies our 
obscure and solitary world. Yes, it is but a 
twinkling atom in the peopled infinity of 
worlds that are around it — but look to the 
moral grandeur of the transaction, and not 
to the material extent of the field upon 
which it was executed — and from the re- 
tirement of our dwelling-place, there may 
issue forth such a display of the Godhead, 
as will circulate the glories of his name 
among all his worshippers. Here sin en- 
tered. Here was the kind and universal 
beneficence of a Father, repaid by the in- 
gratitude of a whole family. Here the law 
of God was dishonoured, and that too in 
the face of its proclaimed and unalterable 
sanctions. Here the mighty contest of the 
attributes was ended — and when justice 
put forth its demands, and truth called for 
the fulfilment of its warnings, and the im- 
mutability of God would not recede by a 
single iota, from any one of its positions, 
and all the severities he had ever uttered 
against the children of iniquity, seemed to 
gather into one cloud of threatening venge- 
ance on the tenement that held us— did the 
visit of the only-begotten Son chase away 
all these obstacles tothe triumph of mercy — 
and humble as the tenement may be, deeply 
shaded in the obscurity of insignificance as 
i it is, among the statelier mansions which 
are on every side of it— yet will the recal 
of its exiled family never be forgotten — and 
the illustration that has been given here 
of the mingled grace and majesty of God, 
will never lose its place among the themes 
and the acclamations of eternity. 



And here it may be remarked, that as the 
earthly king who throws a moral aggran- 
dizement around him, by the act of a single 
day, finds, that after its performance, he 
may have the space of many years for ga- 
thering to himself the triumphs of an ex- 
tended reign— so the king who sits on 
high, and with whom one day is as a thou- 
sand years, and a thousand years as one 
day, will find, that after the period of that 
special administration is ended, by which 
this strayed world is again brought back 
within the limits of his favoured creation, 
there is room enough along the mighty 
track of eternity, for accumulating upon 
himself a glory as wide and as universal as 
is the extent of his dominions. You will 
allow the most illustrious of this world's 
potentates, to give some hour of his private 
history to a deed of cottage or domestic 
tenderness ; and every time you think of the 
interesting story, you will feel how sweetly 
and how gracefully the remembrance of it 
blends itself with the fame of his public 
achievements. But still you think that 
there would not have been room enough 
for these achievements of his, had much of 
his time been spent, either among the habi- 
tations of the poor, or in the retirement of 
his own family ; and you conceive, that it 
is because a single day bears so small a pro- 
portion to the time of his whole history, 
that he has been able to combine an in- 
teresting display of private worth, with all 
that brilliancy of exhibition, which has 
brought him down to posterity in the 
character of an august and a mighty sove- 
reign. 

Now apply this to the matter before us. 
Had the history of our redemption been 
confined within the limits of a single day, 
the argument that infidelity has drawn 
from the multitude of other worlds, would 
never have been offered. It is true, that 
ours is but an insignificant portion of the 
territory of God — but if the attentions by 
which he has signalized it, had only taken 
up a single day, this would never have oc- 
curred to us as forming any sensible with- 
drawment of the mind of the Deity from 
the concerns of his vast and universal go- 
vernment. It is the time which the plan of 
our salvation requires, that startles all those 
on whom this argument has any impres- 
sion. It is the time taken up about this 
paltry world, which they feel to be out of 
proportion to the number of other worlds, 
and to the immensity of the surrounding 
creation. Now, to meet this impression, I do 
not insist at present on what I have already 
brought forward, that God, whose ways 
are not as our ways, can have his eye at 
the bame instant on every place, and can 
divide and diversify his attention into any 
number of distinct exercises. What I have 
now to remark, is, that the infidel who 



96 



SYMPATHY FOR MAN IN DISTANT PLACES OF CREATION. 



[DISC. 



urges the astronomical objection to the 
truth of Christianity, is only looking with 
half an eye to the principle on which it 
rests. Carry out the principle, and the 
objection vanishes. He looks abroad on 
the immensity of space, and tells us how 
impossible it is, that this narrow corner of 
it can be so distinguished by the attentions 
of the Deity. Why does he not also look 
abroad on the magnificence of eternity; and 
perceive how the whole period of these pe- 
culiar attentions, how the whole time which 
elapses between the fall of man and the con- 
summation of the scheme of his recovery, is 
but the twinkling of a moment to the mighty 
roll of innumerable ages ? The whole inter- 
val between the time of Jesus Christ's leav- 
ing his Tather's abode, to sojourn among 
us, to that time when he shall have put all 
his enemies under his feet, and delivered 
up the kingdom to God, even his Father, 
that God may be all in all; the whole of this 
interval bears as small a proportion to the 
whole of the Almighty's reign, as this soli- 
tary world does to the universe around it, 
and an infinitely smaller proportion than 
any time, however short, which an earthly 
monarch spends on some enterprise of pri- 
vate benevolence, does to the whole walk of 
his public and recorded history. 

Why, then, does not the man, who can 
shoot his conceptions so sublimely abroad 
over the field of an immensity that knows 



no limits — why does he not also shoot 
them forward through the vista of a suc- 
cession, that ever flow's without stop and 
without termination? He has burst across 
the confines of this world's habitation in 
space, and out of the field which lies on the 
other side of it, has he gathered an argu- 
ment against the truth of revelation. I feel 
that I have nothing to do but to burst 
across the confines of this world's history 
in time, and out of the futurity which lies 
beyond it, can I gather that which will 
blow the argument to pieces, or stamp up- 
on it all the narrowness of a partial and 
mistaken calculation. The day is coming, 
when the whole of this wondrous history 
shall be looked back upon by the eye of the 
remembrance, and be regarded as one in- 
cident in the extended annals of creation, 
and with all the illustration and all the 
glory it has thrown on the character of the 
Deity, will it be seen as a single step in the 
evolution of his designs; and long as the 
time may appear, from the first act of our 
redemption to its final accomplishment, 
and close and exclusive as we may think 
the attentions of God upon it, it will be 
found that it has left him room enough for 
all his concerns, and that on the high scale 
of eternity, it is but one of those passing 
and ephemeral transactions, which crowd 
the history of a never-ending administra- 
tion. 



DISCOURSE V. 

On the Sympathy that is felt for Man in the Distant Places of Creation. 

" I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety 
and nine just persons which need no repentance." — Luke xv. 7 



I have already attempted at full length 
to establish the position, that the infidel ar- 
gument of astronomers goes to expunge a 
natural perfection from the character of 
God, even that wondrous property of his, 
by which he, at the same instant of time, 
can bend a close and a careful attention on 
a countless diversity of objects, and diffuse 
the intimacy of his power and of his pre- 
sence, from the greatest to the minutest and 
most insignificant of them all. I also ad- 
verted shortly to this other circumstance, 
that it went to impair a moral attribute of 
the Deity. It goes to impair the benevo- 
lence of his nature. It is saying much for 
the benevolence of God, to say, that a single 
world, or a single system, is not enough for 
it — that it must have the spread of amigbtier 
region, on which it may pour forth a tide of 
exuberancy throughout all its provinces — 
that as far as our vision can carry us, it has 



strewed immensity with the floating recep- 
tacles of life, and has stretched over each of 
them the garniture of such a sky as mantles 
our own habitation — and that even from 
distances which are far beyond the reach 
of human eye, the songs of gratitude and 
praise may now be arising to the one God, 
who sits surrounded by the regards of his 
one great and universal family. 

Now, it is saying much for the benevolence 
of God, to say that it sends forth these wide 
and distant emanations over the surface of a 
territory so ample, that the world we inha- 
bit, lying imbedded as it does amidst so 
much surrounding greatness, shrinks into a 
point that to the universal eye might appear 
to be almost imperceptible. But does it not 
add to the power and to the perfection of 
this universal eye, that at the very moment 
it is taking a comprehensive survey of the 
vast, it can fasten a steady and undistracted 



SYMPATHY FOR MAN IN DISTANT PLACES OF CREATION. 



9? 



attention on each minute and separate portion 
of it ; that at the very moment it is looking at 
all worlds,it can look most pointedly and most 
intelligently to each of them : that at the very 
moment it sweeps the field of immensity, 
it can settle all the earnestness of its regards 
upon every distinct hand-breadth of that 
field ; that at the very moment at which it 
embraces the totality of existence, it can 
send a most thorough and penetrating in- 
spection into each of its details, and into 
every one of its endless diversities ? You 
cannot fail to perceive how much this adds 
to the power of the all-seeing eye. Tell me, 
then, if it do not add as much perfection to 
the benevolence of God, that Avhile it is ex- 
patiating over the vast field of created things, 
there is not one portion of the field over- 
looked by it j that while it scatters blessings 
over the whole of an infinite range, it causes 
them to descend in a shower of plenty on 
every separate habitation : that while his 
arm is underneath and round about all 
worlds, he enters within the precincts of 
every one of them, and gives a care and a 
tenderness to each individual of their teem- 
ing population. Oh ! does not the God, who 
is said to be love, shed over this attribute of 
his its finest illustration, when, while he sits 
in the highest heaven, and pours out his ful- 
ness on the whole subordinate domain of 
nature and of providence, he bows a pitying 
regard on the very humblest of his chil- 
dren, and sends his reviving Spirit into every 
heart, and cheers by his presence every 
home, and provides for the wants of every 
family, and watches every sick-bed, and 
listens to the complaints of every sufferer ; 
and while by his wondrous mind the weight 
of universal government is borne, oh ! is it 
not more wondrous and more excellent still, 
that he feels for every sorrow, and has an 
ear open to every prayer ? 

" It doth not yet appear what we shall 
be," says the apostle John, " but we know 
that when he shall appear, we shall be like 
him, for we shall see him as he is." It is 
the present lot of the angels, that they be- 
hold the face of our Father in heaven, and 
it would seem as if the effect of this was to 
form and to perpetuate in them the moral 
likeness of himself, and that they reflect 
back upon him his own image, and that 
thus a diffused resemblance to the Godhead 
is kept up among all those adoring worship- 
pers who live in the near and rejoicing con- 
templation of the Godhead. Mark then how 
that peculiar and endearing feature in the 
goodness of the Deity, which we have just 
now adverted to — mark how beauteously it 
is reflected downwards upon us in the re- 
vealed attitude of angels. From the high 
eminences of heaven, are they bending a 
wakeful regard over the men of this sinful 
world ; and the repentance of every one of 
them spreads a joy and a high gratulation 



throughout all its dwelling places. Put this 
trait of the angelic character into contrast 
with the dark and lowering spirit of an infi- 
del. He is told of the multitude of other 
worlds, and he feels a kindling magnificence 
in the conception, and be is seduced by an 
elevation which he cannot carry, and from 
this airy summit does he look down on the 
insignificance of the world we occupy, and 
pronounces it to be unworthy of those visits 
and of those attentions which we read of in 
the New Testament. He is unable to wing 
his way upward along the scale, either of 
moral or of natural perfection ; and when 
the wonderful extent of the field is made 
known to him, over which the wealth of 
the Divinity is lavished — there he stops, and 
wilders, and altogether misses this essential 
perception, that the power and perfection 
of the Divinity are not more displayed by 
the mere magnitude of the field, than they 
are by that minute and exquisite filling up, 
which leaves not its smallest portions ne- 
glected ; but which imprints the fulness of 
the Godhead upon every one of them; and 
proves, by every flower of the pathless de- 
sert, as well as by every orb of immensity, 
how this unsearchable being can care for all, 
and provide for all ; and, throned in mystery 
too high for us, can, throughout every in- 
stant of time, keep his attentive eye on every 
separate thing that he has formed, and by an 
act of his thoughtful and presiding intelli- 
gence, can constantly embrace all. 

But God, compassed about as he is with 
light inaccessible, and full of glory, lies so 
hidden from the ken and conception of all 
our faculties, that the spirit of man sinks 
exhausted by its attempts to comprehend 
him. Could the image of the Supreme be 
placed direct before the eye of the mind, 
that flood of splendour, which is ever issuing 
from him on all who have the privilege of 
beholding, would not only dazzle, but over- 
power us. And therefore it is, that I bid 
you look to the reflection of that image, and 
thus to take a view of its mitigated glories, 
and to gather the lineaments of the God- 
head in the face of those righteous angels, 
who have never thrown away from them 
the resemblance in which they were created ; 
and, unable as you are to support the grace 
and the majesty of that countenance, before 
which the sons and the prophets of other 
days fell, and became as dead men, let us, 
before we bring this argument to a close, 
borrow one lesson of Him who sitteth on 
the throne, from the aspect and the revealed 
doings of those who are surrounding it. 

The infidel, then, as he widens the field 
of his contemplations would suffer its every 
separate object to die away into forgetful- 
ness : these angels, expatiating as they do 
over the range of a loftier universality, are 
represented as all awake to the history of 
each of its distinct and subordinate provin- 



98 SYMPATHY FOR MAN IN DISTANT PLACES OF CREATION. 



ces. The infidel, with his mind afloat among 
suns and among systems, can find no place 
in his already occupied regards, for that 
humble planet which lodges and accommo- 
dates our species ; the angels, standing on a 
loftier summit, and with a mightier prospect 
of creation before them, are yet represented 
as looking down on this single world, and 
attentively marking the every feeling and 
the every demand of all its families. The 
infidel, by sinking us down to an unnotice- 
able minuteness, would lose sight of our 
dwelling-place altogether, and spread a dark- 
ening shroud of oblivion over all the con- 
cerns and all the interests of men ; but the 
angels will not so abandon us ; and undaz- 
zled by the whole surpassing grandeur of 
that scenery which is around them, are they 
revealed as directing all the fulness of their 
regard to this our habitation, and casting a 
longing and benignant eye on ourselves and 
on our children. The infidel will tell us of 
those worlds which roll afar, and the num- 
ber of which outstrips the arithmetic of the 
human understanding — and then with the 
hardness of an unfeeling calculation, will 
he consign the one we occupy, with all its 
guilty generations, to despair. 

But he who counts the number of the 
stars, is set forth to us as looking at every 
inhabitant among the millions of our spe- 
cies, and by the word of the Gospel beck- 
oning to him with the hand of invitation, 
and on the very first step of his return, as 
moving towards him with all the eagerness 
of the prodigal's father, to receive him 
back again into that presence from which 
he had wandered. And as to this world, 
in favour of which the scowling infidel will 
not permit one solitary movement, all hea- 
ven is represented as in a stir about its re- 
storation ; and there cannot a single son or 
a single daughter be recalled from sin unto 
righteousness, without an acclamation of 
joy among the hosts of paradise. Aye, and 
I can say it of the humblest and the un- 
worthiest of you all, that the eye of angels 
is upon him, and that his repentance would 
at this moment, send forth a wave of de- 
lighted sensibility throughout the mighty 
throng of their innumerable legions. 

Now, the single question I have to ask, 
is, On which of the two sides of this con- 
trast do we see most of the impress of hea- 
ven? Which of the two would be most 
glorifying to God ? Which of them car- 
ries upon it the most of that evidence which 
lies in its having a celestial character ? For 
if it be the side of the infidel, then must all 
our hopes expire with the ratifying of that 
fatal sentence, by which the world is doom- 
ed, through its insignificancy, to perpetual 
exclusion from the attentions of the God- 
head. I have long been knocking at the 
door of your understanding, and have tried 
to find an admittance to it for many an argu- 



[disc. 

ment. I now make my appeal to the sensi- 
bilities of your heart ; and tell me, to whom 
does the moral feeling within it yield its 
readiest testimony — to the infidel, who 
would make this world of ours vanish away 
into abandonment — or to those angels, who 
ring throughout all their mansions the ho- 
sannas of joy, over every one individual of 
its repentant population 1 

And here I cannot omit to take advan- 
tage of that opening with which our Saviour 
has furnished us, by the parables of this 
chapter, and admits us into a familiar view 
of that principle on which the inhabitants 
of heaven are so awake to the deliverance 
and the restoration of our species. To il- 
lustrate the difference in the reach of know- 
ledge and of affection, between a man and 
an angel, let us think of the difference of 
reach between one man and another. You 
may often witness a man, who feels neither 
tenderness nor care beyond the precincts 
of his own family ; but who, on the strength 
of those instinctive fondnesses which na- 
ture has implanted in his bosom, may earn 
the character of an amiable father, or a 
kind husband, or a bright example of all 
that is soft and endearing in the relations 
of domestic society. Now, conceive him, 
in addition to all this, to carry his affections 
abroad, without, at the same time, any 
abatement of their intensity towards the' 
objects which are at home — that stepping 
across the limits of the house he occupies, 
he takes an interest in the families which 
are near him — that he lends his services to 
the town or the district wherein he is placed, 
and gives up a portion of his time to the 
thoughtful labours of a humane and public- 
spirited citizen. By this enlargement in the 
sphere of his attention he has extended his 
reach ; and, provided he has not done so at 
the expense of that regard which is due to his 
family — a thing which, cramped and con- 
fined as we are, we are very apt, in the ex- 
ercise of our humble faculties, to do — I put 
it to you, whether, by extending the reach 
of his views and his affections, he has not 
extended his worth and his moral respect- 
ability along with it? 

But I can conceive a still further enlarge- 
ment. I can figure to myself a man, whose 
wakeful sympathy overflows the field of his 
own immediate neighbourhood — to whom 
the name of country comes with all the 
omnipotence of a charm upon his heart, 
and with all the urgency of a most righteous 
and resistless claim upon his services — 
who never hears the name of Britain 
sounded in his ears, but it stirs up all his 
enthusiasm in behalf of the worth and the 
welfare of its people — who gives himself 
up, with all the devotedness of a passion, 
to the best and purest objects of patriotism 
— and who, spurning away from him the 
vulgarities of party ambition, separates his 



V.] SYMPATHY FELT FOR MAN IN 

life and his labours to the fine pursuit of 
augmenting the science, or the virtue, or 
the substantial prosperity of his nation. 
Oh ! could such a man retain all the ten- 
derness, and fulfil all the duties which home 
and which neighbourhood require of him, 
and at the same time expatiate, in the might 
of his untired faculties, on so wide a field 
of benevolent contemplation — would not 
this extension of reach place him still high- 
er than before, on the scale both of moral 
and intellectual gradation, and give him a 
still brighter and more enduring name in 
the records of human excellence 1 

And lastly, I can conceive a still loftier 
flight of humanity — a man, the aspiring of 
whose heart for the good of man, knows 
no limitations — whose longings, and whose 
conceptions on this subject, overleap all 
the barriers of geography — who, looking on 
himself as a brother of the species, links 
every spare energy which belongs to him 
with the cause of its melioration — who can 
embrace within the grasp of his ample de- 
sires the whole family of mankind — and 
who, in obedience to a heaven-born move- 
ment of principle within him, separates 
himself to some big and busy enterprise, 
which is to tell on the moral destinies of the 
world. Oh ! could such a man mix up the 
softenings of private virtue with the habit 
of so sublime a comprehension — if, amid 
those magnificent darings of thought and of 
performance, the mildness of his benignant 
eye could still continue to cheer the retreat 
of his family, and to spend the charm and the 
sacredness of piety among all its members 
— could he even mingle himself, in all the 
gentleness of a soothed and a smiling heart, 
with the playfulness of his children— and 
also find strength to shed the blessings of 
his presence and his counsel over the vi- 
cinity around him; — oh! would not the 
combination of so much grace with so much 
loftiness, only serve the more to aggrandize 
him 1 Would not the one ingredient of a 
character so rare, go to illustrate and to 
magnify the other? And would not you 
pronounce him to be the fairest specimen 
of our nature,, who could so call out all your 
tenderness, while he challenged and com- 
pelled all your veneration ? 

Nor can I proceed, at this point of my 
argument, without adverting to the way in 
which this last and this largest style of be- 
nevolence is exemplified in our own coun- 
try—where the spirit of the Gospel has 
given, to many of its enlightened disciples 
the impulse of such a philanthropy, as car- 
ries abroad their wishes and their endea- 
vours to the very outskirts of human po- 
pulation — a philanthropy, of which, if you 
asked the extent or the boundary of its field, 
we should answer, in the language of in- 
spiration, that the field is the world— phi- 
lanthropy, which overlooks all the distinc- 



DISTANT PLACES OF CREATION. 99 

tions of cast and of colour, and spreads its 
ample regards over the whole brotherhood 
of the species — a philanthropy, which at- 
taches itself to man in the general; to man 
throughout all his varieties : to man as the 
partaker of one common nature, and who, 
in whatever clime or latitude you may meet 
with him, is found to breathe the same 
sympathies, and to possess the same high 
capabilities both of bliss and improvement. 

It is true that upon this subject, there is 
often a loose and unsettled magnificence of 
thought, which is fruitful of nothing but 
empty speculation. Eut the men to whom 
I allude have not imagined the enterprise 
in the form of a thing unknown. They 
have given it a local habitation. They have 
bodied it forth in deed and in accomplish- 
ment. They have turned the dream into a 
reality. In them, the power of a lofty gene- 
ralization meets with its happiest attem- 
perament in the principle and perseverance, 
and all the chastening and subduing virtues 
of the New Testament. And, were 1 in 
search of that fine union of grace and of 
greatness, which I have now been insisting 
on, and in virtue of which the enlightened 
Christian can at once find room in his 
bosom for the concerns of universal hu- 
manity and for the play of kindliness to- 
wards every individual he meets with — I 
could no where more readily expect to find 
it, than with the worthies of our own land — 
the Howard of a former generation, who 
paced it over Europe in quest of the un- 
seen wretchedness which abounds in it ; or 
in such men of our present generation as 
Wilberforce, who lifted his unwearied voice 
against the biggest outrage ever practised 
on our nature, till he wrought its extermi- 
nation; and Clarkson, who plied his assi- 
duous task at rearing the materials of its 
impressive history, and at length carried, 
for this righteous cause, the mind of Parlia- 
ment; and Carey, from whose hand the 
generations of the East are now receiving 
the elements of their moral renovation, and, 
in fine, those holy and devoted men, who 
coimt not their lives dear unto them ; but, 
going forth every year from the island of 
our habitation, carry the message of hea- 
ven over the face of the world ; and in the 
front of severest obloquy are now labouring 
in remotest lands ; and are reclaiming an- 
other and another portion from the wastes 
of dark and fallen humanity; and are widen- 
ing the domains of gospel light and gospel 
principle among them ; and are spreading a 
moral beauty around the every spot on which 
they pitch their lowly tabernacle ; and are at 
length compelling even the eye and the testi- 
mony of gainsayers, by the success of their 
noble enterprise ; and are forcing the ex- 
clamation of delighted surprise from the 
charmed and arrested traveller, as he looks 
at the softening tints which they are now 



100 



SYMPATHY FOR MAN IN DISTANT PLACES OF CREATION. 



[DISC. 



spreading over the wilderness, and as he 
hears the sound of the chapel bell, and as in 
those haunts where, at the distance of half 
a generation, savages would have scowled 
upon his path, he regales himself with the 
hum of missionary schools, and the lovely 
spectacle of peaceful and christian villages. 

Such, then, is the benevolence, at once so 
gentle and so lofty, of those men, who, 
sanctified by the faith that is in Jesus, have 
had their hearts visited from heaven by a 
beam of warmth and of sacredness. — What 
then, I should like to know, is the benevo- 
lence of the place from whence such an in- 
fluence cometh ? How wide is the compass of 
this virtue there, and how exquisite is the feel- 
ing of its tenderness, and how pure and how 
fervent are its aspirings among those unfal- 
len beings who have no darkness and no en- 
cumbering weight of corruption to strive 
against ? Angels have a mightier reach of 
contemplation. Angels can look upon this 
world, and all which it inherits, as the part 
of a larger family. Angels were in the full 
exercise of their powers even at the first in- 
fancy of our species, and shared in the gra- 
tulations of that period, when at the birth 
of humanity all intelligent nature felt a 
gladdening impulse, and the morning stars 
sang together for joy. They loved us even 
with that love which a family on earth bears 
to a younger sister ; and the very childhood 
of our tinier faculties did only serve the 
more to endear us to them ; and though 
born at a later hour in the history of crea- 
tion, did they regard us as heirs of the same 
destiny with themselves, to rise along with 
them in the scale of moral elevation, to bow 
at the same footstool, and to partake in those 
high dispensations of a parent's kindness and 
a parent's care, which are ever emanating 
from the throne: of the Eternal on all the 
members of a duteous and affectionate fami- 
ly. Take the reach of an angel's mind, but, 
at the same time take the seraphic fervour of 
an angel's benevolence along with it ; how 
from the eminence on which he stands he 
may have an eye upon many worlds, and a 
remembrance upon the origin and the suc- 
cessive concerns of every one of them ; how 
he may feel the full force of a most affect- 
ing relationship with the inhabitants of 
each, as the offspring of one common Fa- 
ther ; and though it be both the effect and the 
evidence of our depravity, that we cannot 
sympathise with these pure and generous 
ardours of a celestial spirit ; how it may 
consist with the lofty comprehension, and 
the everbreathing love of an angel, that he 
can both shoot his benevolence abroad over 
a mighty expanse of planets and of systems, 
and lavish a flood of tenderness on each 
individual of their teeming population. 

Keep all this in view, and you cannot 
fail to perceive how the principle, so finely 
and so copiously illustrated in this chapter 



may be brought to meet the infidelity we 
have thus long been employed in combat- 
ing. It was nature, and the experience of 
every bosom will affirm it — it was nature 
in the shepherd to leave the ninety and nine 
of his flock forgotten and alone in the wil- 
derness, and betaking himself to the moun- 
tains, to give all his labour and all his con- 
cern to the pursuit of one solitary wan- 
derer. It was nature ; and we are told in 
the passage before us, that it is such a por- 
tion of nature as belongs not merely to men 
but to angels ; when the woman, with her 
mind in a state of listlessness as to the nine 
pieces of silver that were in secure custody, 
turned the whole force of her anxiety to the 
one piece which she had lost, and for which 
she had'ito light a candle, and to sweep the 
house, and to search diligently until she 
found it. It was nature in her to rejoice 
more over that piece, than over all the rest 
of them, and to tell it abroad among friends 
and neighbours, that they might rejoice 
along with her — aye, and sadly effaced as hu- 
manity is, in all her original lineaments, this 
is a part of our nature, the very movements 
of which are experienced in heaven, " where 
there is more joy over one sinner that re- 
penteth, than over ninety and nine just per- 
sons who need no repentance." For any 
thing I know, the very planet that rolls in 
the immensity around me may be a land of 
righteousness ; and be a member of the 
household, of God ; and have her secure 
dwelling-place within that ample limit, 
which embraces his great and universal fa- 
mily. But I know at least of one wanderer ; 
and how wofully she has strayed from 
peace and from purity ; and how in dreary 
alienation from him who made her, she has 
bewildered herself among those many de- 
vious tracts, which have carried her afar 
from the path of immortality ; and how sad- 
ly tarnished all those beauties and felicities 
are, which promised, on that morning of her 
existence when God looked on her, and 
saw that all was very good — which pro- 
mised so richly to bless and to adorn her ; 
and how in the eye of the whole unfallen 
creation, she has renounced all this goodli- 
ness, and is fast departing away from them 
into guilt, and wretchedness, and shame. 
Oh ! if there be any truth in this chapter, 
and any sweet or touching nature in the 
principle which runs throughout all its pa- 
rables, let us cease to wonder, though they 
who surround the throne of love should be 
looking so intently toward us— or though 
in the way by which they have singled us 
out, all the other orbs of space should, for 
one short season, on the scale of eternity, 
appear to be forgotten— or though for every 
step of her recovery, and for every indi- 
vidual who is rendered back again to the 
fold from which he was separated, another 
and another message of triumph should be 



SYMPATHY FOR MAN IN DISTANT PLACES OF CREATION. 



.01 



made to circulate among the hosts of para- 
dise — or though lost as we are, and sunk in 
depravity as we are, all the sympathies of 
heaven should now be awake on the en- 
terprise of him who has travailed, in the 
greatness of his strength, to seek and to 
save us. 

And here I cannot but remark how fine a 
harmony there is between the law of sym- 
pathetic nature in heaven, and the most 
touching exhibitions of it on the face of our 
world. When one of a numerous house- 
hold droops under the power of disease, is 
not that the one to whom all the tenderness 
is turned, and who, in a manner, monopo- 
lizes the inquiries of his neighbourhood, 
and the care of his family ? When the 
sighing of the midnight storms sends a dis- 
mal foreboding into the mother's heart, to 
whom of all her offspring, I would ask, are 
her thoughts and her anxieties then wan- 
dering ? Is it not to her sailor boy whom her 
fancy has placed amid the rude and angry 
surges of the ocean! Does not this, the 
hour of his apprehended danger, concen- 
trate upon him the whole force of her wake- 
ful meditations ? And does not he engross, 
for a season, her every sensibility, and her 
every prayer ? We sometimes hear of ship- 
' wrecked passengers thrown upon a barba- 
rous shore ; and seized upon by its prowling 
inhabitants ; and hurried away through the 
tracks of a dreary and unknown wilder- 
ness ; and sold into captivity ; and loaded 
with the fetters of irrecoverable bondage ; 
and who, stripped of every other liberty but 
the liberty of thought, feel even this to be 
another ingredient of wretchedness, for 
what can they think of but home ; and as all 
its kind and tender imagery comes upon 
their remembrance, how can they think of 
it but in the bitterness of despair ? Oh tell 
me, when the fame of all this disaster 
reaches his family, who is the member of 
it to whom is directed the full tide of its 
griefs and of its sympathies? Who is it that, 

j for weeks and for months, usurps their 

1 every feeling, and calls out their largest sa- 
crifices, and sets them to the busiest expe- 
dients for getting him back again ? Who is 
it that makes them forgetful of themselves 
nd of all around them ; and tell me if you 
an assign a limit to the pains, and the ex- 
ertions, and the surrenders which afflicted 
parents and weeping sisters would make to 

I seek and to save him. 

Now conceive, as we are warranted to do 
by the parables of this chapter, the princi- 
ple of all these earthly exhibitions to be in 

I full operation around the throne of God. 
Conceive the universe to be one secure and 
rejoicing family, and that this alienated 
world is the only strayed, or only captive 
member belonging to it ; and we shall cease 
to wonder, that from the first period of the 
captivity of our species, down to the con- 



summation of their history in time, there 
should be such a movement in heaven ; or 
that angels should so often have sped their 
commissioned way on the errand of our 
recovery ; or that the Son of God should 
have bowed himself down to the burden of 
our mysterious atonement; or that the 
Spirit of God should now, by the busy va- 
riety of his all-powerful influences, be carry- 
ing forward that dispensation of grace 
which is to make us meet for re-ad rnittance 
into the mansions of the celestial. Only 
think of love as the reigning principle there; 
of love, as sending forth its energies and 
aspirations to the quarter where its object 
is most in danger of being for ever lost to 
it ; of love, as called forth by this single 
circumstance to its uttermost exertion, and 
the most exquisite feeling of its tenderness ; 
and then shall we come to a distinct and a 
familiar explanation of this whole mystery: 
Nor shall we resist by our incredulity the 
gospel message any longer, though it tells 
us that throughout the whole of this world's 
history, long in our eyes, but only a little 
month in the high periods of immortality, 
so much of the vigilance, and so much of the 
earnestness of heaven, should have been 
expended on the recovery of its guilty po- 
pulation. 

There is another touching trait of nature, 
which goes finely to heighten this princi- 
ple, and still more forcibly to demonstrate 
its application to our present argument. So 
long as the dying child of David was alive, 
he was kept on the stretch of anxiety and 
of suffering with regard to it. When it ex- 
pired, he arose and comforted himself. This 
narrative of King David is in harmony with 
all that we experience of our own move- 
ments and our own sensibilities. It is the 
power of uncertainty which gives them so 
active and so interesting a play in our bo- 
soms; and which heightens all our regards 
to a tenfold pitch of feeling and exercise ; 
and which fixes down our watchfulness 
upon our infant's dying bed ; and which 
keeps us so painfully alive to every turn 
and to every symptom in the progress of 
its malady ; and which draws out all our 
affections for it to a degree of intensity that 
is quite unutterable; and which urges us or 
to ply our every effort and our every ex- 
pedient, till hope withdraw its lingering 
beam, or till death shut the eyes of our be- 
loved in the slumber of its long and its last 
repose. 

I know not who of you have your names 
written in the book of life— nor can I tell 
if this be known to the angels which are in 
heaven. While in the land of living men, 
you are under the power and application 
of a remedy, which if taken as the gospel 
prescribes, will renovate the soul, and al- 
together prepare it for the bloom and the 
vigour of immortality. Wonder not then 



102 CONTEST FOR AN ASCENDENCY OVER MAN. 



that with this principle of uncertainty in 
such full operation, ministers should feel 
for you ; or angels should feel for you ; or 
all the sensibilities of heaven should be 
awake upon the symptoms of your grace 
and reformation ; or the eyes of those who 
stand upon the high eminences of the celes- 
tial world, should be so earnestly fixed on 
the every footstep and new evolution of 
your moral history. Such a consideration 
as this should do something more than si- 
lence the infidel objection. It should give 
a practical effect to the calls of repentance. 



[disc. 

How will it go to aggravate the whole guilt 
of our impenitency, should we stand out 
against the power and the tenderness 01 
these manifold applications — the voice of a 
beseeching God upon us — the word of salva- 
tion at our very door — the free offer of 
strength and of acceptance sounded in our 
hearing — the spirit in readiness with his 
agency to meet our every desire and our 
every inquiry — angels beckoning us to their 
company — and the very first movements of 
our awakened conscience drawing upon us 
all their regard, and all their earnestness ! 



DISCOURSE VI. 

On the Contest for an Ascendency over Man, among the Higher Orders of 

Intelligence. 

" And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in 

it." — Colossians ii. 15. 



Though these astronomical Discourses 
be now drawing to a close, it is not because 
I feel that much more might not be said on 
the subject of them, both in the way of ar- 
gument and of illustration. The whole of 
the infidel difficulty proceeds upon the as- 
sumption, that the exclusive bearing of 
Christianity is upon the people of our earth; 
that this solitary planet is in no way impli- 
cated with the concerns of a wider dispen- 
sation; that the revelation we have of the 
dealings of God, in this district of his em- 
pire, does not suit and subordinate itself to 
a system of moral administration, as ex- 
tended as in the whole of his monarchy. 
Or, in other words, because infidels have not 
access to the whole truth, will they refuse 
a part of it however well attested or well 
accredited it may be ; because a mantle of 
deep obscurity rests on the government of 
God, when taken in all its eternity and all 
its entireness, will they shut their eyes 
against that allowance of light which has 
been made to pass downwards upon our 
world from time to time, through so many 
partial unfoldings ; and till they are made 
to know the share which other planets have 
in these communications of mercy, will they 
turn them away from the actual message 
which has come to their own door, and 
will neither examine its credentials, nor be 
alarmed by its warnings, nor be won by the 
tenderness of its invitations. 

On that day when the secrets of all hearts 
shall be revealed, there will be found such a 
wilful duplicity and darkening of the mind 
in the whole of this proceeding, as shall 
bring down upon it the burden of a righ- 
teous condemnation. But, even now, does 
it lie open to the rebuke of philosophy, 



when the soundness and the consistency of 
her principles are brought faithfully to bear 
upon it. Were the characters of modern 
science rightly understood, it would be seen, 
that the very thing which gave such strength 
and sureness to all her conclusions, was 
that humility of spirit which belonged to 
her. She promulgates all that is positively 
known; but she maintains the strictest 
silence and modesty about all that is un- 
known. She thankfully accepts of evidence 
wherever it can be found; nor does she 
spurn away from her the very humblesl 
contribution of such doctrine as can be wit- 
nessed by human observation, or can be 
attested by human veracity. But with all 
this she can hold out most sternly against 
that power of eloquence and fancy, which 
often throws so bewitching a charm over 
the plausibilities of ingenious speculation. 
Truth is the alone idol of her reverence; 
and did she at all times keep by her at- 
tachments, nor throw them away when 
theology submitted to her cognizance its 
demonstrations and its claims, we should 
not despair of witnessing as great a revolu- 
tion in those prevailing habitudes of thought 
which obtain throughout our literary esta- 
blishments, on the subject of Christianity, 
as that which has actually taken place in 
the philosophy of external nature. This is 
the first field on which have been success- 
fully practised the experimental lessons of 
Bacon ; and they who are conversant with 
these matters, know how great and how 
general a uniformity of doctrine now pre- 
vails in the sciences of astronomy, and 
mechanics, and chemistry, and almost all 
the other departments in the history and 
philosophy of matter. But this uniformity 



VI/] 



CONTEST FOR AN ASCENDENCY OVER MAN. 



103 



stands strikingly contrasted with the diver- 
sity of our moral systems, with the restless 
fluctuations both of language and of senti- 
ment which are taking place in the philoso- 
phy of mind, with the palpable fact that 
every new course of instruction upon this 
subject, has some new articles, or some 
new explanations to peculiarize it : and all 
this is to be attributed, not to the progress 
of the science, not to a growing, but to an 
alternating movement ; not to its perpetual 
additions, but to its perpetual vibrations. 

I mean not to assert the futility of moral 
science, or to deny her importance, or to 
insist on the utter hopelessness of her ad- 
vancement. The Baconian method will not 
probably push forward her discoveries with 
such a rapidity, or to such an extent, as 
many of her sanguine disciples have anti- 
cipated. But if the spirit and the maxims 
of this philosophy were at all times pro- 
ceeded upon, it would certainly check that 
rashness and variety of excogitation, in 
virtue of which it may almost be said, that 
every new course presents us with a new- 
system, and that every new teacher has 
some singularity or other to characterize 
him. She may be able to make out an exact 
transcript of the phenomena of mind, and 
in so doing, she yields a most important 
contribution to the stock of human acquire- 
ments. But when she attempts to grope 
her darkling way through the counsels of 
the Deity, and the futurities of his admin- 
istration; when, without one passing ac- 
knowledgment to the embassy which pro- 
fesses to have come from Him, or to the 
facts and to the testimonies by which it has 
so illustriously been vindicated, she launches 
forth her own speculations on the character 
of God, and the destiny of man ; when, 
N though this be a subject on which neither 
the recollections of history, nor the ephe- 
meral experience of any single life, can fur- 
nish one observation to enlighten her, she 
will nevertheless utter her own plausibili- 
ties, not merely with a contemptuous ne- 
glect of the Bible, but in direct opposition 
to it ; then it is high time to remind her of 
the difference between the reverie of him 
who has not seen God, and the well-accre- 
dited declaration of Him who was in the 
beginning with God, and was God ; and to 
tell her that this so far from being the ar- 
gument of an ignoble fanaticism, is in har- 
mony with the very argument upon which 
the science of experiment has been reared, 
and by which it has been at length deliver- 
ed from the influence of theory, and purified 
of all its vain and visionary splendours. 

In my last Discourses, I have attempted 
to collect from the records of God's actual 
communication to the world, such traces 
of relationship between other orders of be- 
ing and the great family of mankind, as 
serve to prove that Christianity is not so 



paltry and provincial a system as infidelity 
presumes it to be. And as I said before, 
I have not exhausted all that may legiti- 
mately be derived upon this subject from 
the informations of Scripture. I have ad- 
verted, it is true, to the knowledge of our 
moral history, wh ; ch obtains throughout 
other provinces of the intelligent creation. 
I have asserted the universal importance 
which this may confer on the transactions 
even of one planet, in as much as it may 
spread an honourable display of the God- 
head among all the mansions of infinity. I 
have attempted to expatiate on the argu- 
ment, that an event little in itself, may be 
so pregnant with character, as to furnish all 
the worshippers of heaven with a theme 
of praise for eternity. I have stated that 
nothing is of magnitude 4n their eyes, but 
that which serves to endear to them the 
Father of their spirits, or to shed a lustre 
over the glory of his incomprehensible at- 
tributes — and that thus, from the redemp- 
tion even of our solitary species, there may 
go forth such an exhibition of the Deity, 
as shall bear the triumphs of his name to 
the very outskirts of the universe. 

I have further adverted to another dis- 
tinct scriptural intimation, that the state of 
fallen man was not only matter of know- 
ledge to other orders of creation, but was 
also matter of deep regret and affectionate 
sympathy; that, agreeably to such laws 
of sympathy as are most familiar even 
to human observation, the very wretched- 
ness of our condition was fitted to concen- 
trate upon us the feelings, and the attentions, 
and the services, of the celestial — to single 
us out for a time to the gaze of their most 
earnest and unceasing contemplation — to 
draw forth all that was kind rnd all that 
was tender within them— and just in pro- 
portion to the need and to the helplessness 
of us miserable exiles from the family of 
God, to multiply upon us the regards, and 
call out in our behalf the fond and eager 
exertions of those who had never wandered 
away from Him. This appears from the 
Bible to be the style of that benevolence 
which glows and which circulates around 
the throne of heaven. It is the very benevo- 
lence which emanates from the throne itself, 
and the attentions of which have for so 
many thousand years signalized the inha- 
bitants of our world. This may look a long 
period for so paltry a world. But how have 
infidels come to their conception that our 
world is so paltry? By looking abroad 
over the countless systems of immensity 
But why then have they missed the con 
ception, that the time of those peculiar visi- 
tations, which they look upon as so dispro- 
portionate to the magnitude of this earth, 
is just as evanescent as the earth itself is 
insignificant 7 Why look they not abroad 
on the countless generations of eternity; 



104 



CONTEST FOR AN ASCENDENCY OVER MAN. 



[DISC. 



and thus come back to the conclusion, that 
after all, the redemption of our species is 
but an ephemeral doing in the history of 
intelligent nature ; that it leaves the Author 
of it room for all the accomplishments of a 
wise and equal administration ; and not to 
mention, that even during the progress of 
it, it withdraws not a single thought or a 
single energy of his from other fields of 
creation ; that there remains time enough 
to him for carrying round the visitations of 
as striking and as peculiar a tenderness, over 
the whole extent of his great and universal 
monarchy? 

It might serve still further to incorporate 
the concerns of our planet with the general 
history of moral and intelligent beings, to 
state, not merely the knowledge which 
they take of us, and not merely the com- 
passionate anxiety which they feel for us ; 
but to state the importance derived to our 
world from its being the actual theatre of a 
keen and ambitious contest among the up- 
per orders of creation. You know that 
how, for the possession of a very small and 
insulated territory, the mightiest empires 
of the world would have put forth all their 
resources ; and on some field of mustering 
competition have monarchs met, and em- 
barked for victory, all the pride of a coun- 
try's talent, and all the flower and strength 
of a country's population. The solitary 
island, around which so many fleets are ho- 
vering, and on the shores of which so many 
armed men are descending, as to an arena 
of hostility, may well wonder at its own 
unlooked for estimation. But other princi- 
ples are animating the battle, and the glory 
of nations is at stake ; and a much higher 
result is in the contemplation of each party, 
than the gain of so humble an acquirement 
as the primary object of the war; and ho- 
nour, dearer to many a bosom than exist- 
ence, is now the interest on which so much 
blood and so much treasure is expended; 
and the stirring spirit of emulation has now 
got hold of the combatants ; and thus, amid 
all the insignificancy, which attaches to the 
material origin of the contest, do both the 
eagerness and the extent of it, receive from 
the constitution of our nature, their most 
full and adequate explanation. 

Now, if this be also the principle of high- 
er natures, if, on the one hand God be jea- 
lous of his honour, and on the other, there 
be proud and exalted spirits, who scowl de- 
fiance at him and at his monarchy; — if, on 
the side of heaven, there be an angelic host 
rallying around the standard of loyalty, 
who flee with alacrity at the bidding of the 
Almighty, who are devoted to his glory, 
and feel a rejoicing interest in the evolution 
of his counsels ; and if, on the side of heli, 
there be a sullen front of resistance, a hate 
and malice inextinguishable, an unequalled 
daring of revenge to baffle the wisdom of 



the Eternal, and to arrest the hand, and to, 
defeat the purposes of Omniptence ; — then 
let the material prize of victory be insig- 
nificant as it may, it is the victory in itself, 
which upholds the impulse of this keen 
and stimulated rivalry. If, by the sagacity 
of one infernal mind, a single planet has 
been seduced from its allegiance, and been 
brought under the ascendency of him, who 
is called in Scripture, "the god of this 
world," and if the errand on which our 
Redeemer came, was to destroy the works 
of the devil — then let this planet have all 
the littleness which astronomy has assigned 
to it — call it what it is, one of the smallei 
islets which float on the ocean of vacancy t 
it has become the theatre of such a compe- 
tition, as may have all the desires and all 
the energies of a divided universe embarked 
upon it. It involves in it other objects than 
the single recovery of our species. It decides 
higher questions. It stands linked with the 
supremacy of God, and will at length demon- 
strate the way in which he inflicts chastise- 
ment and overthrow upon all his enemies, 
I know not if our rebellious world be the 
only strong-hold which Satan is possessed 
of, or if it be but the single post of an ex- 
tended warfare, that is now going on be- 
tween the powers of light and of darkness, 
But be it the one or the other, the parties 
are in array, and the spirit of the contest is 
in full energy, and the honour of mighty 
combatants is at stake ; and let us therefore 
cease to wonder that our humble residence 
has been made the theatre of so busy an 
operation, or that the ambition of loftier na- 
tures has here put forth all its desire and 
all its strenuousness. 

This unfolds to us another of those high 
and extensive bearings, which the moral 
history of our globe may have on the 
system of God's universal administration. 
Were an enemy to touch the shore of this 
high-minded country, and to occupy so 
much as one of the humblest villages, and 
there to seduce the natives from their loy- 
alty, and to sit down along with them in 
entrenched defiance to all the threats, and 
to all the preparations of an insulted em- 
pire — oh ! how would the cry of wounded 
pride resound throughout all the ranks and 
varieties of our mighty population; and 
this very movement of indignancy would 
reach the king upon his throne; and circu- 
late among those who stood in all the gran- 
deur of chieftainship around him ; and be 
heard to thrill in the eloquence of Parlia- 
ment ; and spread so resistless an appeal to 
a nation's honour, or a nation's patriotism, 
that the trumpet of war would summon to 
its call all the spirit and all the willing en- 
ergies of our kingdom ; and rather than sit 
down in patient endurance under the burn- 
ing disgrace of such a violation, would the 
whole of its strength and resources be em- 



VI.] 



CONTEST FOR AN ASCENDENCY OVER MAN. 



10d 



barked upon the contest ; and never, never 
would we let down our exertions and our 
sacrifices, till either our deluded country- 
men were reclaimed, or till the whole of 
this offence were by one righteous act of 
vengeance, swept away altogether from the 
face of the territory it deformed. 

The Bible is alwa}'S most full and most 
explanatory on those points of revelation in 
which men are personally interested. But 
it does at times offer a dim transparency, 
through which may be caught a partial 
view of such designs and of such enter- 
prises as are now afloat among the upper 
orders of intelligence. It tells us of a 
mighty struggle that is now going on for a 
moral ascendency over the hearts of this 
world's population. It tells us that our 
race were seduced from their allegiance to 
God, by the plotting sagacity of one who 
stands pre-eminent against him, among the 
hosts of a very wide and extended rebellion. 
It tells us of the Captain of Salvation, who 
undertook to spoil him of this triumph, and 
throughout the whole of that magnificent 
train of prophecy which points to him, does 
it describe the work he had to do as a con- 
flict, in which strength was to be put forth, 
and painful suffering to be endured, and 
fury to be poured upon enemies, and prin- 
cipalities to be dethroned, and all those 
toils, and dangers, and difficulties to be 
borne, which strewed the path of perse- 
verance that was to carry him to victory. 

But it is a contest of skill, as well as of 
strength and of influence. There is the 
earnest competition of angelic faculties em- 
barked on this struggle for ascendency. 
And while in the Bible there is recorded, 
(faintly and partially, we admit,) the deep 
and insidious policy that is practised on 
the one side ; we are also told, that on the 
plan of our world's restoration, there are 
lavished all the riches of an unsearchable 
wisdom upon the other. It would appear, 
that for the accomplishment of his purpose, 
the great enemy of God and of man plied 
his every calculation ; and brought all the 
devices of his deep and settled malignity to 
bear upon our species; and thought that 
could he involve us in sin, every attribute 
of the Divinity stood staked to the banish- 
ment of our race from beyond the limits of 
the empire of righteousness; and thus did 
he practise his invasions on the moral ter- 
ritory of the unfallen ; and glorying in his 
success, did he fancy and feel that he had 
achieved a permanent separation between 
the God who sitteth in heaven, and one at 
least of the planetary mansions which he 
had reared. 

The errand of the Saviour was to restore 
this sinful world, and have its people re- 
admitted within the circle of heaven's pure 
and righteous family. But in the govern- 
ment of heaven, as well as in the govern- 
O 



ment of earth, there are certain principles 
which cannot be compromised; and certain 
maxims of administration which must 
never be departed from; and a certain cha- 
racter of majesty and of truth, on which 
the taint even of the slightest violation can 
never be permitted ; and a certain authority 
which must be upheld by the immutability 
of all its sanctions, and the unerring fulfil- 
ment of all its wise and righteous procla- 
mations. All this was in the mind of the 
archangel, and a gleam of malignant joy 
shot athwart him as be conceived his pro- 
ject for hemming our unfortunate species 
within the bound of an irrecoverable di- 
lemma ; and as surely as sin and holiness 
could not enter into fellowship, so surely 
did he think, that if man were seduced to 
disobedience, would the truth, and the jus- 
tice, and the immutability of God, lay their 
insurmountable barriers on the path of his 
future acceptance. 

It Avas only in that plan of recovery of 
which Jesus Christ was the author and the 
finisher, that the great adversary of our 
species met with a wisdom which over- 
matched him. It is true, that he reared, in 
the guilt to which he seduced us, a mighty 
obstacle in the way of this lofty undertaking,. 
But when the grand expedient was an- 
nounced, and the blood of that atonement, 
by which sinners are brought nigh, was 
willingly offered to be shed for us, and the 
eternal Son, to carry this mystery into ac- 
complishment, assumed our nature — then 
was the prince of that mighty rebellion, in 
which the fate and the history of our world 
are so deeply implicated, in visible alarm 
for the safety of all his acquisitions : — nor 
can the record of this wondrous history 
carry forward its narrative, without fur- 
nishing some transient glimpses of a sub- 
lime and a superior warfare, in which, for 
the prize of a spiritual dominion over our 
species, we may dimly perceive the con- 
test of loftiest talent, and all the designs 
of heaven in behalf of man, met at every 
point of their evolution, by the counter- 
workings of a rival strength and a rival sa- 
gacity. 

We there read of a struggle which the 
Captain of our salvation had to sustain, 
when the lustre of the Godhead lay obscu- 
red, and the strength of its omnipotence 
was mysteriously weighed down under the 
infirmities of our nature — how Satan singled 
him out, and dared him to the combat of 
the wilderness — how all his wiles and all 
his influences were resisted — how he left 
our Saviour in all the triumphs of unsub- 
dued loyalty — how the progress of this 
mighty achievement is marked by the every 
character of a conflict — how many of the 
Gospel miracles were so many direct in- 
fringements on the power and empire of 
a great spiritual rebellion— how in one 



106 



CONTEST FOR AN ASCENDENCY OVER MAN. 



[DISC. 



precious season of gladness among the few 
which brightened the dark career of our 
Saviour's humiliation, he rejoiced in spirit, 
and gave as the cause of it to his disciples, 
that " he saw Satan fall like lightning from 
heaven" — how the momentary advantages 
that were gotten over him, are ascribed 
to the agency of this infernal being, who 
entered the heart of Judas, and tempted the 
disciple to betray his Master and his Friend. 
I know that I am treading on the confines 
of mystery. I cannot tell what the battle 
that he fought. I cannot compute the ter- 
ror or the strength of his enemies. I can- 
not say, for I have not been told, how it 
was that they stood in marshalled and 
hideous array against him: — nor can I 
measure how great the firm daring of his 
soul, when he tasted that cup in all its bit- 
terness, which he prayed might pass away 
from him ; when with the feeling that he 
was forsaken by his God, he trod the wine- 
press alone ; when he entered single-handed 
upon that dreary period of agony, and in- 
sult, and death, in which from the garden 
to the cross, he had to bear the burden of 
a world's atonement. I cannot speak in 
my own language, but I can say in the lan- 
guage of the Bible, of the days and the nights 
of this great enterprise, that it was the sea- 
son of the travail of his soul ; that it was 
the hour and the power of darkness ; that 
the work of redemption was a work accom- 
panied by the effort, and the violence, and 
the fury of a combat ; by all the arduous- 
ness of a battle in its progress, and all the 
glories of a victory in its termination ; and 
after he called out that it was finished, after 
he was loosed from the prison-house of the 
grave, after he had ascended up on high, 
he is said to have made captivity captive : 
and to have spoiled principalities and pow- 
ers; and to have seen his pleasure upon 
his enemies ; and to have made a show of 
them openly. 

I will not affect a wisdom above that 
which is written, by fancying such details 
of this warfare as the Bible has not laid be- 
fore me. But surely it is no more than 
being wise up to that which is written, to 
assert, that in achieving the redemption of 
our world, a warfare had to be accomplish- 
ed; that upon this subject there was among 
the higher provinces of creation, the keen 
and the animated conflict of opposing in- 
terests ; that the result of it involved some- 
thing grander and more affecting, than even 
the fate of this world's population ; that it 
decided a question of rivalship between the 
righteous and everlasting Monarch of uni- 
versal being, and the prince of a great and 
widely extended rebellion, of which I nei- 
ther know how vast is the magnitude, nor 
how important and diversified are the bear- 
ings ; and thus do we gather from this con- 
sideration, another distinct argument, help-, 



ing us to explain, why on the salvation of 
our solitary species so much attention ap- 
pears to have been concentred, and so much 
energy appears to have been expended. 

But it would appear from the records of 
inspiration, that the contest is not yet ended ; 
that on the one hand the Spirit of God is 
employed in making for the truths of 
Christianity, a way into the human heart, 
with all the power of an effectual demon- 
stration ; that on the other there is a spirit 
now abroad, which worketh in the children 
of disobedience ; that on the one hand, the 
Holy Ghost is calling men out of darkness 
into the marvellous light of the Gospel ; 
and that on the other hand, he who is styled 
the god of this world, is blinding their 
hearts, lest the light of the glorious gospel 
of Christ should enter into them ; that they 
who are under the dominion of the one, 
are said to have overcome, because greater 
is he that is in them than he that is in the 
world; and that they who are under the 
dominion of the other, are said to be the 
children of the devil, and to be under his 
snare, and to be taken captive by him at 
his will. How these respective powers do 
operate, is one question. The fact of their 
operation, is another. We abstain from the 
former. We attach ourselves to the latter, 
and gather from it, that the prince of dark- 
ness still walketh abroad among us ; that 
he is still working his insidious policy, if 
not with the vigorous inspiration of hope, 
at least with the frantic energies of despair ; 
that while the overtures of reconciliation 
are made to circulate through the world, 
he is plying all his devices to deafen and 
to extinguish the impression of them ; or, 
in other words, while a process of invitation 
and of argument has emanated from hea- 
ven, for reclaiming men to their loyalty — 
the process is resisted at all its points, by 
one who is putting forth his every expe- 
dient, and wielding a mysterious ascend- 
ency, to seduce and to enthral them. 

To an infidel ear, all this carries the 
sound of something wild and visionary 
along with it; but though only known 
through the medium of revelation, after it 
is known, who can fail to recognize its har- 
mony with the great Lineaments of human 
experience % Who has not felt the work- 
ings of a rivalry within him, between the 
power of conscience and the power of 
temptation? Who does not remember 
those seasons of retirement, when the cal- 
culations of eternity had gotten a moment- 
ary command over the heart ; and time, 
with all its interests and all its vexations, 
had dwindled into insignificancy before 
them ? And who does not remember, how 
upon his actual engagement with the ob- 
jects of time, they resumed a control, as 
great and as omnipotent, as if all the im- 
portance of eternity adhered to them- -how 



INFLUENCE OF TASTE AND SENSIBILITY IN RELIGION. 



107 



they emitted from them such an impression 
upon his feelings, as to fix and to fascinate 
the whole man into a subserv iency to their 
influence— how in spite of every lesson of 
their worthlessness, brought home to him at 
every turn by the rapidity of the seasons, and 
the vicissitudes of life, and the ever-moving 
progress of his owm earthly career, and the 
visible ravages of death among his acquaint- 
ances around him, and the desolations of 
his family, and the constant breaking up 
of his system of friendships, and the affect- 
ing spectacle of all that lives and is in mo- 
tion, withering and hastening to the grave ; 
— oh ! how comes it that in the face of all 
this experience, the whole elevation of pur- 
pose, conceived in the hour of his better 
understanding, should be dissipated and 
forgotten ? Whence the might, and whence 
the mystery of that spell, which so binds 
and so" infatuates us to the world ? What 
prompts us so to embark the whole strength 
of our eagerness and of our desires in pursuit 
of interests which we know a few little 
years will bring to utter annihilation ? Who 
is it that imparts to them all the charm and 
all the colour of an unfailing durability ? 
Who is it that throws such an air of stability 
over these earthly tabernacles, as makes 
them look to the fascinated eye of man like 
resting places for eternity? Who is it that 
so pictures out the objects of sense, and so 
magnifies the range of their future enjoy- 
ment, and so dazzles the fond and deceived 
imagination, that in looking onward through 
our earthly career, it appears like the vista, 
or the perspective of innumerable ages? 
He who is called the god of this world. He 
who can dress the idleness of its waking 
dreams in the garb of reality. He who can 
pour a seducing brilliancy over the pano- 
rama of its fleeting pleasures and its vain 
anticipations. He who can turn it into an 
instrument of deceitfulness ; and make it 
wield such an absolute ascendency over all 



the affections, that man, become the poor 
slave of its idolatries, and its charms, puts the 
authority of conscience, and the warnings of 
the Word of God, and the offered instigations 
of the Spirit of God. and all the lessons of 
calculation^and the wisdom even of his own 
sound and sober experience, away from him. 

But this wondrous contest will come to a 
close. Some will return to their loyalty, 
and others will keep by their rebellion ; and, 
in the day of the winding up of the drama 
of this world's history, there will be made 
manifest to the myriads of the various or- 
ders of creation, both the mercy and vindi- 
cated majesty of the Eternal. Oh ! on that 
day how vain will this presumption of the 
Infidel astronomer appear, when the affairs 
of men come to be examined in the pre- 
sence of an innumerable company; and 
beings of loftiest nature are seen to crowd 
around the judgment-seat; and the Saviour 
shall appear in our sky, with a celestial 
retinue, who have come with him from afar 
to witness all his doings, and to take a deep 
and solemn interest in all his dispensations ; 
and the destiny of our species, whom the 
Infidel would thus detach, in solitary in- 
significance, from the universe altogether, 
shall be found to merge and to mingle with 
higher destinies — the good to spend their 
eternity with angels — the bad to spend their 
eternity with angels — the former to be re- 
admitted into the universal family of God's 
obedient worshippers — the latter to share 
in the everlasting pain and ignominy of the 
defeated hosts of the rebellious — the people 
of this planet to be implicated, throughout 
the whole train of their never-ending his- 
tory, with the higher ranks, and the more 
extended tribes of intelligence; and thus it 
is that the special administration we now 
live under, shall be seen to harmonize in its 
bearings, and to accord in its magnificence, 
with all that extent of nature and of her ter- 
ritories, which modern science has unfolded. 



DISCOURSE VII. 

On the slender Influence of mere Taste and Sensibility in Matters of Religion. 

" And lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one who hath a pleasant voice, and can play well 
on an instrument; for they hear thy words, but they do them not." — Ezekiel xxxiii. 32. 



You easily understand how a taste for 
music is one "thing, and a real submission to 
the influence of religion is another ; — how 
the ear may be regaled by the melody of 
sound, and the heart may utterly refuse the 
proper impression of the sense that is con- 
veyed by it; how the sons and daughters 
of the world may, with their every affection 
devoted to its perishable vanities, inhale all 



the delights of enthusiasm, as they sit in 
crowded assemblage around the deep and 
solemn oratorio ; — aye, and whether it be 
the humility of penitential feeling, or the 
rapture of grateful acknowledgment, or the 
sublime of a contemplative piety, or the as- 
piration of pure and of holy purposes, which 
breathes throughout the words of the per- 
formance, and gives to it all the spirit and 



108 INFLUENCE OF TASTE AND 

all the expression by which it is pervaded ; 
it is a very possible thing, that the moral, 
and the rational, and the active man, may 
have given no entrance into his bosom for 
any of these sentiments ; and yet so over- 
powered may he be by the charm of the 
vocal conveyance through which they are 
addressed to him, that he may be made to 
feel with such an emotion, and to weep 
with such a tenderness, and to kindle with 
such a transport, and to glow with such an 
elevation, as may one and all carry upon 
them the semblance of sacredness. 

But might not this semblance deceive 
him? Have you never heard any tell, and 
with complacency too, how powerfully his 
devotion was awakened by an act of at- 
tendance on the oratorio — how his heart, 
melted and subdued by the influence of 
harmony, did homage to all the religion of 
which it was the vehicle — how he was so 
moved and overborne, that he had to shed 
the tears of contrition, and to be agitated by 
the terrors of judgment, and to receive an 
awe upon his spirit of the greatness and the 
majesty of God — and that wrought up to 
the lofty pitch of eternity, he could look 
down upon the world, and by the glance 
of one commanding survey, pronounce 
upon the littleness and the vanity of all its 
concerns ? Oh ! it is very, very possible that 
all this might thrill upon the ears of the 
man, and circulate a succession of solemn 
and affecting images around his fancy — and 
yet that essential principle of his nature, 
upon which the practical influence of Chris- 
tianity turns, might have met with no reach- 
ing and no subduing efficacy whatever to 
arouse it. He leaves the exhibition, as dead 
in trespasses and sins as he came to it. 
Conscience has not awakened upon him. 
Repentance has not turned him. Faith has 
not made any positive lodgement within 
him of her great and her constraining reali- 
ties. He speeds him back to his business 
and to his family, and there he plays off 
the old man in all the entireness of his 
uncrucified temper, and of his obstinate 
worldliness, and of all those earthly and 
unsanctified affections, which are found to 
cleave to him with as great tenacity as ever. 
He is really and experimentally the very 
same man as before — and all those sensi- 
bilities which seemed to bear upon them 
so much of the air and unction of heaven, 
are found to go into dissipation, and be for- 
gotten with the loveliness of the song. 

Amid all that illusion which such mo- 
mentary visitations of seriousness and of 
sentiment throw around the character of 
man, let us never lose sight of the test, that 
"by their fruits ye shall know them." It is 
not coming up to this test, that you hear 
and are delighted. It is that you hear and 
do. This is the ground upon which the 
reality of your religion is discriminated 



SENSIBILITY IN RELIGION. [DISC. 

now ; and on the day of reckoning, this is 
the ground upon which your religion will 
be judged then ; and that award is to be 
passed upon you, which will fix and per- 
petuate your destiny for ever. You have a 
taste for music. This no more implies the 
hold and the ascendency of religion over 
you, than that you have a taste for beautiful 
scenery, or a taste for painting, or even a 
taste for the sensualities of epicurism. But 
music may be made to express the glow 
and the movement of devotional feeling; 
and it is saying nothing to say that the 
heart of him who listens with a raptured 
ear, is through the whole time of the per- 
formance, in harmony with such a move- 
ment? Why, it is saying nothing to the 
purpose. Music may lift the inspiring 
note of patriotism; and the inspiration may 
be felt; and it may thrill over the recesses 
of the sou], to the mustering up of all its 
energies ; and it may sustain to the last ca- 
dence of the song, the firm nerve and pur- 
pose of intrepidity; and all this may be 
realized upon him, who in the day of battle, 
and upon actual collision with the dangers 
of it, turns out to be a coward. And music 
may lull the feelings into unison with piety ; 
and stir up the inner man to lofty determi- 
nations; and so engage for a time his affec- 
tions, that, as if weaned from the dust, they 
promise an immediate entrance on some 
great and elevated career, which may carry 
him through his pilgrimage superior to all 
the sordid and grovelling enticements that 
abound in it. But he turns him to the world, 
and all this glow abandons him ; and the 
words which he hath heard, he doeth them 
not; and in the hour of temptation he turns 
out to be a deserter from the law of alle- 
giance ; and the test I have now specified 
looks hard upon him, and discriminates 
him amid all the parading insignificance of 
his fine but fugitive emotions, to be the 
subject both of present guilt and of future 
vengeance. 

The faithful application of this test would 
put to flight a host of other delusions. It 
may be carried round among all those phe- 
nomena of human character, where there is 
the exhibition of something associated with 
religion, but which is not religion itself. 
An exquisite relish for music is no test of 
the influence of Christianity. Neither are 
many other of the exquisite sensibilities of 
our nature. When a kind mother closes 
the eyes of her expiring babe, she is thrown 
into a flood of sensibility, and soothing to 
her heart are the sympathy and the prayers 
of an attending minister. When a gathering 
neighbourhood assemble to the funeral of 
an acquaintance, one pervading sense of 
regret and tenderness sits on the face of the 
company; and the deep silence, broken only 
by the solemn utterance of the man of 
God, carries a kind of pleasing religiousness 



VII.] 



INFLUENCE OF TASTE AND SENSIBILITY IN RELIGION. 



109 



along with it. The sacredness of the hal- 
lowed day, and the decencies of its obser- 
vation, may engage the affections of him 
who loves to walk in the footsteps of his 
father; and every recurring Sabbath may 
bring to his bosom, the charm of its regu- 
larity and its quietness. Religion has its 
accomplishments ; and in these, there may 
be something to soothe, and to fascinate, 
even in the absence of the appropriate in- 
fluences of religion. The deep and tender 
impression of a family bereavement, is not 
religion. The love of established decencies, 
is not religion. The charm of all that sen- 
timentalism which is associated with many 
of its solemn and affecting services, is not 
religion. They form the distinct folds of 
its accustomed drapery; but they do not, 
any or all of them put together, make up 
the substance of the thing itself. A mother's 
tenderness may flow most gracefully over 
the tomb of her departed little one ; and she 
may talk the while of that heaven whither 
its spirit has ascended. The man whom 
death had widowed of his friend, may 
abandon himself to the movements of that 
grief, which for a time will claim an ascen- 
dency over him ; and, among the multitude 
of his other reveries, may love to hear of 
the eternity, where sorrow and separation 
are alike unknown. He who has been 
trained, from his infant days, to remember 
the Sabbath, may love the holiness of its 
aspect; and associate himself with all its 
observances; and take a delighted share in 
the mechanism of its forms. But, let not 
these think, because the tastes and the sen- 
sibilities which engross them, maybe blend- 
ed with religion, that they indicate either 
its strength or its existence within them. I 
recur to the test. I press its imperious 
exactions upon you. I call for fruit, and de- 
mand the permanency of a religious influ- 
ence on the habits and the history. Oh ! 
how many who take a flattering unction to 
their souls, when they think of their amiable 
feelings, and their becoming observations, 
with whom this severe touch-stone would, 
like the head of Medusa, put to flight all 
their complacency. The afflictive dispen- 
sation is forgotten — and he on whom it was 
laid, is practically as indifferent to God and 
to eternity as before. The Sabbath services 
come to a close ; and they are followed by 
the same routine of week-day worldliness 
as before. In neither the one case nor the 
other, do we see more of the radical influ- 
ence of Christianity than in the sublime 
and melting influence of sacred music upon 
the soul; and all this tide of emotion is 
found to die away from the bosom, like the 
pathos or like the loveliness of a song. 

The instances may be multiplied without 
number. A man may have a taste for elo- 
quence, and eloquence the most touching 
or sublime may lift her pleading voice on 



the side of religion. A man may love to 
have his understanding stimulated by the 
ingenuities, or the resistless urgencies of an 
argument; and argument the most pro- 
found and the most overbearing, may put 
forth all the might of a constraining vehe- 
mence in behalf of religion. A man may 
feel the rejoicings of a conscious elevation, 
when some ideal scene of magnificence is 
laid before him ; and where are these scenes 
so readily to be met with, as when led to 
expatiate in thought over the track of eter- 
nity, or to survey the wonders of creation, 
or to look to the magnitude of these great 
and universal interests which lie within the 
compass of religion? A man may have his 
attention riveted and regaled by that power 
of imitative description, which brings all 
the recollections of his own experience be- 
fore him ; which presents him with a faithful 
analysis of his own heart ; which embodies 
in language such intimacies of observation 
and of feeling, as have often passed before 
his eyes, or played within his bosom, but 
had never been so truly or so ably pictured 
to the view of his remembrance. Now, all 
this may be done in the work of pressing 
the duties of religion ; in the work of in- 
stancing the application of religion ; in the 
work of pointing those allusions to life and 
to manners, which manifest the truth to the 
conscience, and plant such a conviction of 
sin, as forms the very basis of a sinner's 
religion. Now, in all these cases, I see 
other principles brought into action, and 
which may be in a state of most lively and 
vigorous movement, and be yet in a state 
of entire separation from the principle of 
religion. I will make bold to say, on the 
strength of these illustrations, that as much 
delight may emanate from the pulpit, on an 
arrested audience beneath it, as ever ema- 
nated from the boards of a theatre — aye, 
and with as total a disjunction of mind too, 
in the one case as in the other, from the es- 
sence or the habit of religion. I recur to 
the test. I make my appeal to experience; 
and I put it to you all, whether your finding 
upon the subject do not agree with my 
saying about it, that a man may weep, and 
admire, and have many of his faculties put 
upon the stretch of their most intense grati- 
fication — his judgment established, and his 
fancy enlivened, and his feelings overpow- 
ered, and his hearing charmed, as by the 
accents of heavenly persuasion, and all 
within him feasted by the rich and varied 
luxuries of an intellectual banquet! — Oh ! it 
is cruel to frown unmannerly in the midst 
of so much satisfaction. But I must not 
forget that truth has her authority, as well 
as her sternness; and she forces me to 
affirm, that after all this has been felt and 
gone through, there might not be one prin- 
ciple which lies at the turning point of 
conversion, that has experienced a single 



110 



INFLUENCE OF TASTE AND SENSIBILITY IN RELIGION. 



[DISC. 



movement — not one of its purposes be con- 
ceived — not one of its doings be accom- 
plished — not one step of that repentance, 
which, if we have not, we perish, so much 
as entered upon — hot one announcement of 
that faith, by which we are saved, admitted 
into a real and actual possession by the 
inner man. He has had his hour's enter- 
tainment, and willingly does he award this 
homage to the performer, that he hath a plea- 
sant voice, and can play well on an instru- 
ment — but, in another hour, it fleets away 
from his remembrance, and goes all to no- 
thing, like the loveliness of a song. 

Now, in bringing these Astronomical Dis- 
courses to a close, I feel it my duty to ad- 
vert to this exhibition of character in man. 
The sublime and interesting topic which 
has engaged us, however feebly it may 
have been handled; however inadequately 
it may have been put in all its worth, and 
in all its magnitude before you ; however 
short the representation of the speaker or 
the conception of the hearers may have been 
of that richness, and that greatness, and 
that loftiness, which belong to it ; possesses 
in itself a charm to fix the attention, to re- 
gale the imagination, and to subdue the 
whole man into a delighted reverence; and, 
in a word, to beget such a solemnity of 
thought, and of emotion, as may occupy 
and enlarge the soul for hours together, as 
may waft it away from the grossness of or- 
dinary life, and raise it to a kind of elevated 
calm above all its vulgarities and all its 
vexations. 

Now, tell me whether the whole of this 
effect upon the feelings, may not be formed 
without the presence of religion. Tell me 
whether there might not be such a consti- 
tution of mind, that it may both want alto- 
gether that principle in virtue of which the 
doctrines of Christianity are admitted into 
the belief, and the duties of Christianity 
are admitted into a government over the 
practice — and yet, at the very same time, 
it may have the faculty of looking abroad 
over some scene of magnificence, and of 
being wrought up to ecstacy with the sense 
of all those glories among which it is expa- 
tiating. I want you to see clearly the dis- 
tinction between these two attributes of the 
human character. They are, in truth, as 
different the one from the other, as a taste 
for the grand and the graceful of scenery 
differs from the appetite of hunger ; and the 
one may both exist and have a most intense 
operation within the bosom of that very in- 
dividual, who entirely disowns, and is en- 
tirely disgusted with the other. What ! 
must a man be converted, ere from the most 
elevated peak of some Alpine wilderness, 
he becomes capable of feeling the force and 
the majesty of those great lineaments which 
the hand of nature has thrown around him, 
in the varied forms of precipice, and moun- 



tain, and the wave of mighty forests, and 
the rush of sounding waterfalls, and distant 
glimpses of human territory, and pinnacles 
of everlasting snow, and the sweep of that 
circling horizon, which folds in its ample 
embrace the whole of this noble am- 
phitheatre? Tell me whether, without the 
aid of Christianity, or without a particle of 
reverence for the only name given under 
heaven whereby men can be saved, a man 
may not kindle at such a perspective as this, 
into all the raptures, and into all the move- 
ments of a poetic elevation ; and be able to 
render into the language of poetry, the 
whole of that sublime and beauteous image- 
ry which adorns it ; aye, and as if he were 
treading on the confines of a sanctuary 
which he has not entered, may he not mix 
up with the power and the enchantment 
of his description, such allusions to the pre- 
siding genius of the scene : or to the still 
but animating spirit of the solitude ; or to 
the speaking silence of some mysterious 
character which reigns throughout the land- 
scape; or, in fine, to that eternal Spirit, 
who sits behind the elements he has form- 
ed, and combines them into all the varieties 
of a wide and a wondrous creation ; might 
not all this be said and sung with an em- 
phasis so moving, as to spread the colouring 
of piety over the pages of him who per- 
forms thus well upon his instrument; and 
yet, the performer himself have a conscience 
unmoved by a single warning of God's ac- 
tual communication, and the judgment un- 
convinced, and the fears unawakened, and 
the life unreformed by it ? 

Now what is true of a scene on earth, is 
also true of that wider and more elevated 
scene which stretches over the immensity 
around it, into a dark and a distant unknown. 
Who does not feel an aggrandisement of 
thought and of faculty, when he looks 
abroad over the amplitudes of creation — 
when placed on a telescopic eminence, his 
aided eye can find a pathway to innumera- 
ble worlds — when that wondrous field, over 
which there had hung for many ages the 
mantle of so deep an obscurity, is laid open 
to him, and instead of a dreary and unpeo- 
pled solitude, he can see over the whole 
face of it such an extended garniture of rich 
and goodly habitations ! Even the Atheist, 
who tells us that the universe is self-exis- 
tent and indestructible— even he, who in- 
stead of seeing the traces of a manifold wis- 
dom in its manifold varieties, sees nothing 
in them all but the exquisite structures and 
the lofty dimensions of materialism— even 
he, who would despoil creation of its God, 
cannot look upon its golden suns, and their 
accompanying systems, without the solemn 
impression of a magnificence that fixes and 
overpowers him. Now, conceive such a 
belief of God as you all profess, to dawn 
upon his understanding. Let him becomo 



VII.] INFLUENCE OF TASTE AND 

as one of yourselves — and so be put into the 
condition of rising from the sublime of 
matter to the sublime of mind. Let him 
now learn to subordinate the whole of this 
mechanism to the design and authority of a 
great presiding intelligence ; and re-assem- 
bling all the members of the universe, how- 
ever distant, into one family, let him mingle 
with his former conceptions of the grandeur 
which belonged to it, the conception of that 
eternal Spirit who sits enthroned on the 
immensity of his own wonders, and em- 
braces all that he has made, within the 
ample scope of one great administration. 
Then will the images and the impressions 
of sublimity come in upon him from a new- 
quarter. Then will another avenue be 
opened, through which a sense of grandeur 
may find its way into his soul, and have a 
mightier influence than ever to fill, and to 
elevate and to expand it. Then will be esta- 
blished a new and a noble association, by 
the aid of which all that he formerly look- 
ed upon as fair becomes more lovely; and 
all that he formerly looked upon as great, 
becomes more magnificent. But will you 
believe me, that even with this accession to 
his mind of ideas gathered from the con- 
templation of the Divinity ; even with that 
pleasurable glow which steals over his ima- 
gination, when he now thinks him of the 
majesty of God; even with as much of 
what you would call piety, as I fear is 
enough to soothe and to satisfy many of 
yourselves, and which stirs and kindles 
within you when you hear the goings forth 
of the Supreme set before you in the terms 
of a lofty representation ; even with all this, 
I say there may be as wide a distance from 
the habit and the character of godliness, as 
if God was still atheistically disowned by 
him. Take the conduct of his life and the 
currency of his affections ; and you may see 
as little upon them of the stamp of loyalty 
to God, or of reverence for any one of his 
authenticated proclamations, as you may see 
in him who offers his poetic incense to the 
genii, or weeps enraptured over the visions 
of a beauteous mythology. The sublime of 
Deity has wrought up his soul to a pitch 
of conscious and pleasing elevation — and 
yet this no more argues the will of Deity 
to have a practical authority over him, 
than does that tone of elevation wmich 
is caught by looking at the sublime of a 
naked materialism. The one and the other 
have their little hour of ascendency over 
him ; and when he turns him to the rude 
and ordinary world, both vanish alike from 
his sensibilfties as does the loveliness of a 
song. 

To kindle and be elevated by a sense 
of the majesty of God, is one thing. 
It is totally another thing to feel a move- 
ment of obedience to the will of God, under 
the impression of his rightful authority over 



SENSIBILITY IN RELIGION. Ill 

all the creatures whom he has formed. A 
man may have an imagination all alive to 
the .former ; while the latter never prompts 
him to one act of obedience ; never leads him 
to compare his life with the requirements 
of the Lawgiver ; never carries him from 
such a scrutiny as this, to the conviction of 
sin ; never whispers such an accusation to 
the ear of his conscience, as causes him to 
mourn, and to be in heaviness for the guilt 
of his hourly and habitual rebellion ; never 
shuts him up to the conclusion of the 
need of a Saviour ; never humbles him to 
acquiescence in the doctrine of that reve- 
lation, which comes to his door with such 
a host of evidence, as even his own philo- 
sophy cannot bid away ; never extorts a 
single believing prayer in the name of 
Christ, or points a single look, either of trust 
or of reverence, to his atonement; never 
stirs any effective movement of conversion ; 
never sends an aspiring energy into his bo- 
som after the aids of that Spirit, who alone 
can waken him out of his lethargies, and 
by the anointing which remaineth, can 
rivet and substantiate in his practice, those 
goodly emotions which have hitherto plied 
him with the deceitfulness of their mo- 
mentary visits, and then capriciously aban- 
doned him. 

The mere majesty of God's power and 
greatness, when offered to your notice, lays 
hold of one of the faculties within you. The 
holiness of God, w r ith his righteous claim 
of legislation, lays hold of another of these 
faculties. The difference between them is 
so great, that the one may be engrossed and 
interested to the full, while the other re- 
mains untouched, and in a state of entire 
dormancy. Now, it is no matter what it be 
that ministers delight to the former of these 
two faculties : If the latter be not arrested 
and put on its proper exercise, you are 
making no approximation whatever to the 
right habit and character of religion. There 
are a thousand ways in which we may con- 
trive to regale your taste for that which is 
beauteous and majestic. It may find its 
gratification in the loveliness of a vale, or 
in the freer and bolder outlines of an upland 
situation, or in the terrors of a storm, or in 
the sublime contemplations of astronomy, 
or in the magnificent idea of a God who 
sends forth the wakefulness of his om- 
niscient eye, and the vigour of his upholding 
hand, throughout all the realms of nature 
and of providence. The mere taste of the 
human mind may get its ample enjoyment 
in each and in all of these objects, or in a 
vivid representation of them ; nor does it 
make any material difference, whether this 
representation be addressed to you from 
the stanzas of a poem, or from the recita- 
tions of a theatre, or finally from the dis- 
courses and the demonstrations of a pulpit. 
And thus it is, that still on the impulse of 



112 



INFLUENCE OP TASTE AND SENSIBILITY IN RELIG OR. 



[DISC. 



the one principle only, people may come 
in gathering multitudes to the house of God ; 
and share with eagerness in all the glow 
and bustle of a crowded attendance; and 
have their every eye directed to the speaker; 
and feel a responding movement in their 
bosom to his many appeals and his many 
arguments ; and carry a solemn and over- 
powering impression of all the services 
away with them ; and yet throughout the 
whole of this seemly exhibition, not one 
effectual knock may have been given at the 
door of conscience. The other principle 
may be as profoundly asleep, as if hushed 
into the insensibility of death. There is a 
spirit of deep slumber, it would appear, 
which the music of no description, even 
though attuned to a theme so lofty as the 
greatness and majesty of the Godhead, can 
ever charm away. Oh ! it may have been a 
piece of parading insignificance altogether — 
the minister playing on his favourite in- 
strument, and the people dissipating away 
their time on the charm and idle luxury of 
a theatrical emotion. 

The religion of taste, is one thing. The 
religion of conscience, is another. I recur 
to the test. What is the plain and practical 
doing which ought to issue from the whole 
of our argument ? If one lesson come more 
clearly or more authoritatively out of it 
than another, it is the supremacy of the 
Bible. If fitted to impress one movement 
rather than another, it is that movement of 
a docility, in virtue of which, man, with the 
feeling that he has all to learn, places him- 
self in the attitude of a little child, before 
the book of the unsearchable God, who has 
deigned to break his silence, and to trans- 
mit, even to our age of the world, a faithful 
record of his own communication. What 
progress then are you making in this move- 
ment ? Are you, or are you not, like new- 
born babes, desiring the sincere milk of the 
word, that you may grow thereby 1 How 
are you coming on in the work of casting 
down your lofty imaginations 1 With the 
modesty of true science, which is here at 
one with the humblest and most penitenti- 
ary feeling which Christianity can awaken, 
are you bending an eye of earnestness on 
the Bible, and appropriating its informa- 
tions, and moulding your every conviction 
to its doctrines and its testimonies ? How 
long, I beseech you, has this been your 
habitual exercise? By this time do you feel 
the darkness and the insufficiency of na- 
ture ? Have you found your way to the 
need of an atonement ? Have you learned 
the might and the efficacy which are given 
to the principle of faith ? Have you longed 
with all your energies to realize it ? Have 
you broken loose from the obvious misdo- 
ings of your former history? Are you con- 
vinced of your total deficiency from the 
spiritual obedience of the affections? Havel 



you read of the Holy Ghost, by whom re- 
newed in the whole desire and character of 
your mind, you are led to run with alacrity 
in the way of the commandments? Have 
you turned to its practical use, the impor- 
tant truth, that he has given to the believ- 
ing prayers of all, who really want to be 
relieved from the power both of secret and 
of visible iniquity ? I demand something 
more than the homage you have rendered 
to the pleasantness of the voice that has 
been sounding in your hearing. What I 
have now to urge upon you, is the bidding 
of the voice, to read, and to reform and to 
pray, and, in a word, to make your con- 
sistent step from the elevations of philoso- 
phy, to all those exercises, whether of doing 
or of believing, which mark the conduct of 
the earnest, and the devoted, and the sub- 
dued, and the aspiring Christian. 

This brings under our view a most deep- 
ly interesting exhibition of human nature, 
which may often be witnessed, among 
the cultivated orders of society. When a 
teacher of Christianity addresses himself to 
that principle of justice within us, in virtue 
of which we feel the authority of God to be 
a prerogative which righteously belongs to 
him, he is then speaking the appropriate 
language of religion, and is advancing its 
naked and appropriate claim over the obe- 
dience of mankind. He is then urging that 
pertinent and powerful consideration, upon 
which alone he can ever hope to obtain 
the ascendency of a practical influence over 
the purposes and the conduct of human 
beings. It is only by insisting on the moral 
claim of God to a right of government over 
his creatures, that he can carry their loyal 
subordination to the will of God. Let him 
keep by this single argument, and urge it 
upon the conscience, and then, without any 
of the other accompaniments of what is 
called christian oratory, he may bring con- 
vincingly home upon his hearers all the 
varieties of christian doctrine. He may 
establish within their minds the dominion 
of all that is essential in the faith of the 
New Testament. He may, by carrying out 
this principle of God's authority into all its 
applications, convince them of sin. He may 
lead them to compare the loftiness and 
spirituality of his law, with the habitual 
obstinacy of their own worldly affections. 
He may awaken them to the need of a Sa- 
viour. He may urge them to a faithful and 
submissive perusal of God's own communi- 
cation. He may thence press upon them the 
truth and the immutability of their Sove- 
reign. He may work in their hearts an 
impression of this emphatic saying, that 
God is not to be mocked — that his law must 
be upheld in all the significancy of its pro- 
clamations—and that either his severities 
must be discharged upon the guilty, or in 
some other way an adequate provision be 



VII.] INFLUENCE OF TASTE AND 

found for its outraged dignity, and its vio- 
lated sanctions. Thus may he lead them 
to flee for refuge to the blood of the atone- 
ment. And he may further urge upon his 
hearers, how, such is the enormity of sin, 
that it is not enough to have found an ex- 
piation for it; how its power and its ex- 
istence must be eradicated from the hearts 
of all, who are to spend their eternity in the 
mansions of the celestial ; how, for this pur- 
pose, an expedient is made known to us in 
the New Testament ; how a process must 
be described upon earth, to which there is 
given the appropriate name of sanctifica- 
tion ; how, at the very commencement of 
every true course of discipleship, this pro- 
cess is entered upon with a purpose in the 
mind of forsaking all ; how nothing short 
of a single devotedness to the will of God, 
will ever carry us forward through the suc- 
cessive stages of this holy and elevated ca- 
reer; how, to help the infirmities of our 
nature, the Spirit is ever in readiness to be 
given to those who ask it ; and that thus 
the life of every Christian becomes a life 
of entire dedication to Him who died for 
us — a life of prayer, and vigilance, and close 
dependance on the grace of God ; and, as 
the infallible result of the plain but power- 
ful and peculiar teaching of the Bible, a 
life of vigorous unwearied activity in the 
doing of all the commandments. 

Now, this I would call the essential busi- 
ness of Christianity. This is the truth as 
it is in Jesus, in its naked and unassociated 
simplicity. In the work of urging it, no- 
thing more might have been done, than to 
present certain views, which may come 
with as great clearness, and freshness, and 
take as full possession of the mind of a 
peasant as of the mind of a philosopher. 
There is a sense of God, and of the rightful 
allegiance that is due to him. There are 
plain and practical appeals to the conscience. 
There is a comparison of the state of the 
heart, with the requirements of a law which 
proposes to take the heart under its obe- 
dience. There is the inward discernment 
of its coldness about God; of its unconcern 
about the matters of duty and of eternity ; 
of its devotion to the forbidden objects of 
sense ; of its constant tendency to nourish 
within its own receptacles, the very ele- 
ment and principle of rebellion, and in 
virtue of this, to send forth the stream of 
an hourly and accumulating disobedience 
over those doings of the* outer man, which 
make up his visible history in the world. 
There is such an earnest and overpower- 
ing impression of all this, as will fix a 
man down to the single object of deliver- 
ance; as will make him awake only to 
those realities which have a significant 
and substantial bearing on the case that en- 
grosses him ; as will teach him to nauseate 
all the impertinences of tasteful and am- 
P 



SENSIBILITY IN RELIGION. 118 

bitious description; as will attach him to 
the truth in its simplicity; as will fasten 
his every regard upon the Bible, where, if 
he persevere in the work of honest inquiry, 
he will soon be made to perceive the ac- 
cordancy between its statements, and all 
those movements of fear, or guilt, or deeply- 
felt necessity, or conscious darkness, stu- 
pidity, and unconcern about the matters 
of salvation, which pass within his own 
bosom ; in a word, as will endear him to 
that plainness of speech, by which his own 
experience is set evidently before him, and 
that plain phraseology of scripture, which 
is best fitted to bring home to him the doc- 
trine of redemption, in all the truth, and in 
all the preciousness of its applications. 

Now, the whole of this work may be 
going on, and that too in the wisest and 
most effectual manner, without so much as 
one particle of incense being offered to any 
of the subordinate principles of the human 
constitution. There may be no fascinations 
of style. There may be no magnificence of 
description. There may be no poignancy 
of acute and irresistible argument. There 
may be a ri vetted attention on the part of 
those whom the Spirit of God hath awaken- 
ed to seriousness about the plain and affect- 
ing realities of conversion. Their con- 
science may be stricken, and their appetite 
be excited for an actual settlement of mind 
on those points about which they feel rest- 
less and unconfirmed. Such as these are 
vastly too much engrossed with the exigen- 
cies of their condition, to be repelled by 
the homeliness of unadorned truth. And 
thus it is, that while the loveliness of the 
song has done so little in helping on the 
influences of the gospel, our men of sim- 
plicity and prayer have done so much for 
it. With a deep and earnest impression of 
the truth themselves, they have made mani- 
fest that truth to the consciences of others. 
Missionaries have gone forth with no other 
preparation than the simple Word of the 
Testimony — and thousands have owned its 
power, by being both the hearers of the 
word and the doers of it also. They have 
given us the experiment in a state of un- 
mingled simplicity ; and we learn, from the 
success of their noble example, that with- 
out any one human expedient to charm 
the ear, the heart may, by the naked in- 
strumentality of the Word of God, urged 
with plainness on those who feel its deceit 
and its worthlessness, be charmed to an 
entire acquiesence in the revealed way 
of God, and have impressed upon it the 
genuine stamp and character of godliness. 

Could the sense of what is due to God, 
be effectually stirred up within the human 
bosom, it would lead to a practical carrying 
of all the lessons of Christianity. Now, to 
awaken this moral sense, there are certain 
simple relations between the creature and the 



114 



INFLUENCE OF TASTE AND SENSIBILITY IN RELIGION. 



[DISC. 



Creator, which must be clearly apprehend- 
ed, and manifested with power unto the 
conscience. We believe, that however much 
philosophers may talk about the compara- 
tive ease of forming those conceptions 
which are simple, they will, if in good earn- 
est after a right footing with God, soon dis- 
cover in their own minds, all that darkness 
and incapacity about spiritual things, which 
are so broadly announced to us in the New 
Testament. And, oh ! it is a deeply inter- 
esting spectacle, to behold a man, who can 
take a masterly and commanding survey 
over the field of some human speculation, 
who can clear his discriminated way through 
all the turns and ingenuities of some human 
argument, who by the march of a mighty and 
resistless demonstration, can scale with as- 
sured footstep the sublimities of science, 
and from his firm stand on the eminence 
he has won, can descry some wondrous 
range of natural or intellectual truth spread 
out in subordination before him ; — and yet 
this very man may, in reference to the 
moral and authoritative claims of the God- 
head, be in a state of utter apathy and blind- 
ness ! All his attempts, either at the spiritu- 
al discernment, or the practical impression 
of this doctrine, may be arrested and baffled 
Dy the weight of some great inexplicable 
impotency. A man of homely talents, and 
still homelier education, may see what he 
cannot see, and feel what he cannot feel ; 
and wise and prudent as he is, there may 
lie the barrier of an obstinate and impene- 
trable concealment, between his accomplish- 
ed mind, and those things which are re- 
vealed unto babes. 

But while his mind is thus utterly devoid 
of whatmaybecalledthemainor elemental 
principle of theology, he may have a far 
quicker apprehension, and have his taste 
and his feelings much more powerfully in- 
terested, than the simple Christian who is 
beside him, by what may be called the cir- 
cumstantials of theology. He can throw a 
wider and more rapid glance over the mag- 
nitudes of creation. He can be more deli- 
cately alive to the beauties and the sublimi- 
ties which abound in it. He can, when the 
idea of a presiding God is suggested to him, 
have a more kindling sense of his natural 
majesty, and be able, both in imagination 
and in words, to surround the throne of 
the Divinity by the blazonry of more great, 
and splendid, and elevating images. And 
yet, with all those powers of conception 
which he does possess, he may not possess 
that on which practical Christianity hinges. 
The moral relation between him and God, 
may neither be effectively perceived, nor 
faithfully proceeded on. Conscience may be 
in a state of the most entire dormancy, 
and the man be regaling himself with the 
magnificence of God, while he neither loves 
God, nor believes God, nor obeys God. 



And here I cannot but remark, how much 
effect and simplicity go together in the an- 
nals of Moravianism. The men of this truly 
interesting denomination, address them- 
selves exclusively to that principle of our 
nature on which the proper influence of 
Christianity turns. Or, in other words, 
they take up the subject of the gospel mes- 
sage, that message devised by him who knew 
what was in man, and who, therefore, knew 
how to make the right and the suitable ap- 
plication to man.— They urge the plain Word 
of the Testimony; and they pray for a bless- 
ing from on high ; and that thick impalpable 
veil, by which the god of this world blinds 
the hearts of men who believe not, lest the 
light of the glorious gospel of Christ should 
enter into them — that veil, which no 
power of philosophy can draw aside, gives 
way to the demonstration of the Spirit; and 
thus it is, that a clear perception of scrip- 
tural truth, and all the freshness and per- 
manency of its moral influences, are to 
be met with among men who have just 
emerged from the rudest and the grossest 
barbarity. — Oh! when one looks at the 
number and the greatness of their achieve- 
ments ; when he thinks of the change they 
have made on materials so coarse and so 
unpromising; when he eyes the villages 
they have formed ; and around the whole 
of that engaging perspective by which they 
have chequered and relieved the grim soli- 
tude of the desert, he witnesses the love, 
and listens to the piety of reclaiming 
savages; — who would not long to be in 
possession of the charm by which they 
have wrought this wondrous transforma- 
tion—who would not willingly exchange 
for it all the parade of human eloquence, 
and all the confidence of human argument 
— and for the wisdom of winning souls, 
who is there that would not rejoice to throw 
the loveliness of the song, and all the in- 
significancy of its passing fascinations, 
away from him ? 

And yet it is right that every cavil against 
Christianity should be met, and every argu- 
ment for it be exhibited, and all the graces 
and sublimities of its doctrine be held 
out to their merited admiration. And if it 
be true, as it certainly is, that throughout 
the whole of this process, a man may be 
carried rejoicingly along from the mere 
indulgence of his taste, and the mere play 
and exercise of his understanding ; while 
conscience is untouched, and the suprema- 
cy of moral claims upon the heart and the 
conduct is practically disowned by him— 
it is further right that this should be adver- 
ted to; and that such a melancholy un- 
hingement in the constitution of man should 
be fully laid open, and that he should be 
driven out of the seductive complacency 
which he is so apt to cherish, merely because 
he delights in the loveliness of the song ; 



VII.] 



INFLUENCE OF TASTE AND SENSIBILITY IN RELIGION. 



115 



and that he should be urged with the im- 
periousness of a demand which still remains 
unsatisfied, to turn him from the corrupt 
indifference of nature, and to become per- 
sonally a religious man ; and that he should 
be assured how all the gratification he felt 
in listening to the Avord which respected 
the kingdom of God, will be of no avail, 
unless that kingdom come to himself in 
power — that it will only go to heighten the 
perversity of his character — that it will not 
extenuate his real and practical ungodliness, 
but will serve most fearfully to aggravate 
the condemnation of it. 

With a religion so argumentable as ours, 
it may be easy to gather out of it a feast 
for the human understanding. With a re- 
ligion so magnificent as ours, it may be 
easy to gather out of it a feast for the hu- 
man imagination. But with a religion so 
humbling, and so strict, and so spiritual, it 
is not easy to mortify the pride ; or to quell 
the strong enmity of nature ; or to arrest 
the currency of the affections ; or to turn 
the constitutional habits ; or to pour a new 
complexion over the moral history ; or to 
stem the domineering influence of things 
seen and things sensible ; or to invest faith 
with a practical supremacy ; or to give its 
objects such a vivacity of influence as shall 
overpower the near and the hourly im- 
pressions, that are ever emanating upon 
man from a seducing world. It is here 
that man feels himself treading upon the 
limit of his helplessness. It is here that he 
sees where the strength of nature ends ; and 
the power of grace must either be put forth, 
or leave him to grope his darkling way, 
without one inch of progress towards the 
life and the substance of Christianity. It 
is here that a barrier rises on the contem- 
plation of the inquirer — the barrier of sepa- 
ration between the carnal and the spiritual, 
and on which he may idly waste the every 
energy which belongs to him, in the en- 
terprise of surmounting it. It is here, that 
after having walked the round of nature's 
acquisitions, and lavished upon the truth of 
all his ingenuities, and surveyed it in its 
every palpable character of grace and ma- 
jesty; he will still feel himself on a level 
with the simplest and most untutored of the 
species. He needs the power of a living 
manifestation. He needs the anointing 
which remaineth. He needs that which 
fixes and perpetuates a stable revolution 
upon the character, and in virtue of which 
he may be advanced from the state of 
one who hears, and is delighted, to the 
state of one who hears, and is a doer. Oh ! 
how strikingly is the experience even of 
vigorous and accomplished nature at one 
on this point with the announcements of 
revelation, that to work this change, there 
must be the putting forth of a peculiar 
agency ; and that it is an agency, which. 



withheld from the exercise of loftiest talent, 
is often brought down on an impressed au- 
dience, through the humblest of all instru- 
mentality, with the demonstration of the 
Spirit and with power. 

Think it not enough, that you carry in 
your bosom an expanded sense of the mag- 
nificence of creation. But pray for a sub- 
duing sense of the authority of the Creator. 
Think it not enough, that with the justness 
of a philosophical discernment, you have 
traced that boundary which hems in all the 
possibilities of human attainment, and have 
found that all beyond it is a dark and 
fathomless unknown. But let this modesty 
of science be carried, as in consistency it 
ought, to the question of revelation, and 
let all the antipathies of nature be schooled 
to acquiescence in the authentic testimonies 
of the Bible. Think it not enough that you 
have looked with sensibility and wonder at 
the representation of God throned in im- 
mensity, yet combining with the vastness 
of his entire superintendence, a most tho- 
rough inspection into all the minute and 
countless diversities of existence. Think of 
your own heart as one of these diversities ; 
and that he ponders all its tendencies ; and 
has an eye upon all its movements; and 
marks all its waywardness ; and, God of 
judgment as he is, records its every secret, 
and its every sin, in the book of his remem- 
brance. Think it not enough, that you 
have been led to associate a grandeur with 
the salvation of the New Testament ; when 
made to understand that it draws upon it 
the regards of an arrested universe. How is 
it arresting your own mind? What has been 
the earnestness of your personal regards 
towards it? And tell me, if all its faith, 
and all its repentance, and all its holiness 
are not disowned by you ? Think it not 
enough, that you have felt a sentimental 
charm when angels were pictured to your 
fancy as beckoning you to their mansions, 
and anxiously looking to the every symp- 
tom of your grace and reformation. Oh ! 
be constrained by the power of all this ten- 
derness, and yield yourselves up in a prac- 
tical obedience to the call of the Lord God 
merciful and gracious. Think it not enough 
that you have shared for a moment in the 
deep and busy interest of that arduous con- 
flict which is now going on for a moral 
ascendency over the species. Remember 
the conflict is for each of you individually ; 
and let this alarm you into a watchfulness 
against the power of every temptation, 
and a cleaving dependence upon him 
through whom alone you will be more than 
conquerors. Above all, forget not that 
while you only hear and are delighted, you 
are still under nature's poweiiessness, and 
nature's condemnation— and that the foun- 
dation is not laid, the mighty and essential 
change is not accomplished, the transition 



116 



APPENDIX. 



from death unto life is not undergone, the 
saving faith is not formed, nor the passage 
taken from darkness to the marvellous light 
of the gospel, till you are both hearers of 
the word and doers also. " For if any be a 



hearer of the word and not a doer, he is 
like unto a man beholding his natural face 
in a glass : for he beholdeth himself, and 
goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth 
what manner of man he was." 



APPENDIX. 



The writer of these Discourses has drawn up the following compilation of pas 
sages from Scripture, as serving to illustrate or to confirm the leading arguments 
which have been employed in each separate division of his subject. 



DISCOURSE I. 

In the beginning God created the heaven and 
the earth. Gen. i. 1. 

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, 
and all the host of them. Gen. ii. 1. 

Behold the heaven, and the heaven of heavens, 
is the Lord's thy God, the earth also, with all that 
therein is. Deut. x. 14. 

There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun, 
who rideth upon the heaven in thy help, and in 
his excellency on the sky. Deut. xxxiii. 26. 

And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord, and 
said, O Lord God of 'Israel, which dwellest be- 
tween the cherubims, thou art the God, even thou 
alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth ; thou hast 
made heaven and earth. 2 Kings xix. 15. 

For all the gcds of the people are idols ; but the 
Lord made the heavens. 1 Chronicles xvi. 26. 

Thou, even thou, art Lord alone; thou hast 
made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their 
host, the earth and all things that are therein, the 
seas and all that is therein ; and thou preservest 
them all ; and the host of heaven worship thee. 
Nehemiah ix. 6. 

Which alone spreadeth out the heavens, and 
treadeth upon the waves of the sea; which ma- 
keth Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the 
chambers of the south. Job ix. 8, 9. 

He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, 
and hangeth the earth upon nothing. Job xxvi. 7. 

By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens. 
Job xxvi. 13. 

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the 
firmament showeth his handy-work. Psalm xix. 1. 

By the word of the Lord were the heavens 
made ; and all the host of them by the breath of his 
mouth. Psalm xxxiii. 6. 

Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the 
earth ; and the heavens are the work of thy hands. 
Psalm cii. 25. 

Who coverest thyself with light as with a gar- 
ment ; who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain. 
Psalm civ. 2. 

He appointed the moon for seasons; the sun 
knoweth his going down. Psalm civ. 19. 

You are blessed of the Lord which made heaven 
and earth. The heaven, even the heavens, are the 
Lord's, but the earth hath he given to the children 
of men. Psalm cxv. 15, 16. 

My help cometh from the Lord, which made 
heaven ana earth. Psalm cxxi. 2. 

Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made 
heaven and earth. Psalm cxxiv. 8. 



The Lord that made heaven and earth, bless 
thee out of Zion. Psalm cxxxiv. 3. 

Which made heaven and earth, the sea, and all 
that therein is. Psalm cxlvi. 6. 

The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth ; 
by understanding hath he established the heavens. 
Prov. iii. 19. 

Who hath measured the waters in the hollow 
of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, 
and comprehended the dust of the earth in a mea- 
sure, and weighed the mountains in a scale, and 
the hills in a balance. Isa. xl. 12. 

It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, 
and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers ; 
that stretcheth out the heaven as a curtain, and 
spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in. Isa. xl. 22. 

Thus saith God the Lord, he that created the 
heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread 
forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it ; 
he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and 
spirit to them that walk therein. Isa. xlii. 5. 

Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, and he 
that formed thee from the womb, I am the Lord 
that maketh all things ; that stretcheth forth the 
heavens alone ; that spreadeth abroad the earth by 
myself. Isa. xliv. 24 

I have made the earth, and created man upon it ; 
I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, 
and all their host have I commanded. Isa. xlv. 12. 

For thus saith the Lord that created the hea- 
vens, God himself that formed the earth and made 
it, he hath established it, he created it not in vain, 
he formed it to be inhabited. Isa. xlv. 18. 

Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the 
earth, and my right hand hath spanned the hea- 
vens; when I call unto them, they stand up to- 
gether. Isa. xlviii. 13. 

He hath made the earth by his power, he hath 
established the world by his wisdom, and hath 
stretched out the heavens by his discretion. Jer. 
x. 12. 

Ah Lord God ! behold, thou hast made the hea- 
ven and the earth by thy great power and stretch- 
ed out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee. 
Jer. xxxii. 17. 

He hath made the earth by his power, he hath 
established the world by his wisdom, and hath 
stretched out the heaven by his understanding. 
Jer. li. 15. 

It is he that buildeth his stories in the heaven, 
and hath founded his troop in the earth ; he that 
calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them 
out upon the face of the earth, The Lord is his 
name. Amos ix. 6. 



APPENDIX. 



117 



We also are men of like passions with you, and 
preach unto you, that ye should turn from these 
vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, 
and earth, and the sea, and all things that are 
therein. Acts xiv. 15. 

Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his 
Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, 
by whom also he made the worlds. Heb. i. 2. 

Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the 
foundation of the earth ; and the heavens are the 
work of thine hands. Heb. i. 10. 

Through faith, we understand that the worlds 
were framed by the word of God. Heb. xi. 3. 



DISCOURSE II. 

The secret things belong unto the Lord our 
God, but those things which are revealed belong 
unto us and to our children for ever, that we may 
do all the words of this law. Deut. xxix, 29. 

I would seek unto God, and unto God would I 
commit my cause ; Which doeth great things and 
unsearchable ; marvellous things without number. 
Job v. 8, 9. 

Which doeth great things past finding out; 
yea, and wonders without number. Job ix? 10. 

Canst thou by searching find out God ? Canst 
thou find out the Almighty unto perfection 1 Job 
xi. 7. 

Hast thou heard the secret of God 1 and dost 
thou restrain wisdom to thyself? Job xv. 8. 

Lo, these are parts of his ways ; but how little a 
portion is heard of him ? but the thunder of his 
power who can understand ? Job xxvi. 14. 

Behold, God is great, and we know him not; 
neither can the number of his years be searched 
out. Job xxxvi. 26. 

God thundereth marvellously with his voice; 
great things doeth he, which we cannot compre- 
hend. Job xxxvii. 5. 

Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him 
out ; he is excellent in power, and in judgment, 
and in plenty of justice. Job xxxvii. 23. 

Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the 
great waters, and thy footsteps are not known. 
Psalm lxxvii. 19. 

Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; 
-and his greatness is unsearchable. Psalm cxlv. 3. 

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither 
are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as 
the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my 
ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts 
than your thoughts. Isa. lv. 8, 9. 

Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted, 
and become as little children, ye shall not enter 
into the kingdom of heaven. Matt, xviii. 3. 

Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall not re- 
ceive the kingdom of God, as a little child, shall in 
no wise enter therein. Luke xviii. 17. 

O the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and 
knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his 
judgments, and his ways past finding out! For 
who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who 
hath been his counsellor? Rom. xi. 33. 24. 

Let no man deceive himself. If any man 
among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let 
him become a fool, that he may be wise. 1 Cor. 
iii. 18. _ 

For if a man thinketh himself to be something, 
when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. GaL 
yl 3. 

Beware lest any man spoil you through philoso- 
phy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, af- 



ter the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. 
Col. ± 8. 

O Timothy, keep that which is committed to 
thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and 
oppositions of science falsely so called. 1 Tim. 
vi. 20. 



DISCOURSE III. 

Bdt will God indeed dwell on the earth? Be- 
hold the heaven, and the heaven of heavens, can- 
not contain thee ; how much less this house that I 
have builded? Yet have thou respect unto the 
prayer of thy sen-ant, and to his supplication, O 
Lord my God, to hearken unto the cry and to the 
prayer which thy servant prayeth before thee to- 
day. That thine eyes may be open towards this 
house night and day, even towards the place of 
which thou hast said, My name shall be there; 
that thou mayest hearken unto the prayer which 
thy servant shall make towards tliis place. 1 Kings 
viii. 27, 28, 29. 

For he looketh to the ends of the earth, and 
seeth under the whole heaven. Job xxviii. 24. 

For his eyes are upon the ways of man, and he 
seeth all his goings. Job xxxiv. 21. 

Though the Lord be high, yet hath he respect 
unto the lowly. Psalm cxxxviii. 6. 

O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. 
Thou knowest my down-sittmg and mine up- 
rising : thou understandest my thoughts afar off. 
Thou compasseth my path and my lying down, 
and art acquainted with all my ways. For there 
is not a word in my tongue, but lo, O Lord ! thou 
knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind 
and before, and laid thine hand upon me. Such 
knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high I 
cannot attain unto it. Whither shall I go from 
thy Spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy pre- 
sence ? Psalm cxxxix. 1 — 7. 

How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O 
God ! how great is the sum of them ! If I should 
count them they are more in number than the 
sand : when I awake I am still with thee. Psalms 
cxxxix. 17, 18. 

The eyes of the Lord are in every place, be- 
holding the evil and the good. Prov. xv. 3. 

Can any hide himself in secret places that I 
shall not see him? saith the Lord: do not I fill 
heaven and earth? saith the Lord. Jer. xxiii. 24. 

Behold the fowls of the air; for they sow not, 
neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet 
your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not 
much better than they? And why take ye thought 
for raiment ? Consider the lilies of the field how 
they grow? they toil not, neither do they spin; 
And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon, in 
all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these. 
Wherefore if God so clothe the grass of the field, 
which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the 
oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of 
little of faith? Matt. vi. 26, 28, 29, 30. 

Neither is there any creature that is not mani- 
fest in his sight; but all things are naked and 
opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have 
to do. Heb. iv. 13. 



DISCOURSE IV. 

And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on 
the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven ; and 



118 



APPENDIX. 



behold the angels of God ascending and descend- 
ing on it. Gen. xxviii. 12. 

For a thousand years in thy sight, are but as 
yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the 
night. Psalm xc. 4. 

Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon 
the earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away 
like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a gar- 
ment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like 
manner ; but my salvation shall be for ever, and my 
righteousness shall not be abolished. Isa. li. 6. 

For the son of man shall come in the glory of 
his Father with his angels ; and then he shall re- 
ward every man according to his works. Matt, 
xvi. 27. 

When the Son of Man shall come in his glory, 
and «11 the hoty angels with him, then shall he sit 
upon the throne of his glory. Matt. xxv. 31. 

Also, I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess 
me before men, him shall the Son of Man also 
confess before the angels of God. But he that de- 
nieth me before men, shall be denied before the 
angels of God. Luke xii. 8, 9. 

And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say un- 
to you, hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the 
angels of God ascending and descending upon the 
Son of Man. John i. 51. 

We are made a spectacle to the world, and to 
angels, and to men. 1 Cor. v. 9. 

Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, 
and given him a name which is above every name. 
That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, 
of things in heaven and things in earth, and things 
under the earth ; and that every tongue should con- 
fess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God 
the Father. Phil. ii. 9, 10, 11. 

When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from 
heaven with his mighty angels. 2 Thess. i. 7. 

And without controversy great is the mystery 
of godliness; God was manifest in the flesh, justi- 
fied in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the 
Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into 
glory. 1 Tim. iii. 16. 

I charge thee before G od, and the Lord Jesus 
Christ, and the elect angels, that thoU observe 
these things. 1 Tim. v. 21. 

And again, when he bringeth in the first-begot- 
ten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels 
of God worship him. Heb. i. 6. 

But ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto 
the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, 
and to an innumerable company of angels, To the 
general assembly and church of the first born, 
which are written in heaven, and to God the 
the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men 
made perfect, arid to Jesus, the mediator of the 
new covenant. Hebrews xii. 22, 23, 24. 

But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, 
that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, 
and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is 
not slack concerning his promise, as some men 
count slackness ; but is long-suffering to us- ward, 
not willing that any should perish, but that all 
should come to repentance. But the day of the 
Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the 
which the heavens shall pass away with a great 
noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent 
heat, the earth also and the works that are there- 
in, shall be burnt up. 2 Peter iii. 8, 9, 10. 

And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea 
and upon the earth, lifted up his hand to heaven, 
And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, 
who created heaven and the things that therein 
are, and the earth and the things that there- 
in are, and the sea and the things which are 



therein, that there should be time no longer. Rev. 
x. 5, 6. 

And the third angel followed them, saying 
with a loud voice, if any man worship the beast 
and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead 
or in his hand, The same shall drink of the wine 
of the wrath of God, which is poured out without 
mixture into the cup of his indignation ; and he 
shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the 
presence of the holy angels, and in the presence 
of the Lamb. Rev. xiv. 9, 10. 

And I saw a great white throne, and him that 
sat on it, from whose face the earth and the 
heaven fled away, and there was found no place 
for them. Rev. xx. 11. 



DISCOURSE V. 

And Nathan departed unto his house; and the 
Lord struck the child that Uriah's wife bare unto 
David, and it was very sick. David, therefore, be- 
sought God for the child : and David fasted and 
went in and lay all night upon the earth. And 
the elders of his house arose, and went to him, to 
raise him up from the earth ; but he would not, 
neither did he eat bread with them. And it came 
to pass on the seventh day, that the child died. 
And the servants of David feared to tell him that 
the child was dead ; for they said, Behold, while 
the child was yet alive, we spake unto him, and 
he would not hearken unto our voice, how will he 
then vex himself, if we tell him that the child is 
dead? But when David saw that his servants 
whispered, David perceived that the child was 
dead; therefore David said unto his servants, Is 
the child dead? And they said he is dead. Then 
David arose from the earth and washed, and 
anointed himself, and changed his apparel, and 
came into the house of the Lord, and worshipped : 
then he came to his own house ; and, when he re- 
quired, they set bread before him, and he did eat. 
Then said his servants unto him, What thing is 
that thou hast done? Thou didst fast and weep for 
the child while it was alive : but when the child 
was dead, thou didst rise and eat bread. And he 
said, while the child was yet alive, I fasted and 
wept ; for I said who can tell whether God will be 
gracious to me, that the child may live ? But now 
he is dead, wherefore should I fast ? Can I bring 
him back again ? I shall go to him, but he shall 
not return to me. 2 Sam. xii. 15 — 23. 

The angel of the Lord encampeth round about 
them that fear him, and delivereth them. Psalm 
xxxiv. 7. 

For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to 
keep thee in all thy ways. Psalm xci. 2. 

And he shall send his angels with a great 
sound of a trumpet ; and they shall gather together 
his elect from the four winds, from the one end of 
heaven to the other. Matt. xxiv. 31. 

Likewise I say unto you, There is joy in the 
presence of the angels of God over one sinner that 
repenteth. Luke xv. 10. 

Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth 
to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation. 
Heb. i. 14. 



DISCOURSE VI. 

Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the 
wilderness, to be tempted of the devil. Matt iv. 1. 
The enemy that sowed them is the devil ; the 



APPENDIX. 



119 



harvest is the end of the world ; and the reapers 
are the angels. The Son of Man shall send forth 
his angels^ and they shall gather out of his king- 
dom all things that offend, and them which do ini- 
quity. Matt. xiii. 39, 41. 

Then shall he say also unto them on the left 
hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting 
fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Matt, 
xxv. 41. 

And in the svnagogue there was a man which 
had a spirit of an unclean devil, and cried out with 
a loud voice, saving, Let us alone : what have we 
to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth ; art thou 
come to destrov us ? I know thee who thou art : 
the Holy One" of God. Luke iv. 33, 34. 

Those by the way-side are thev that hear; then 
cometh the devil and taketh away the word out of 
their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. 
Luke viiL 12. 

But he knowing their thoughts, said unto them, 
Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to 
desolation ; and a house divided against a house, 
falleth. If Satan also be divided against himself, 
how shall his kingdom stand 7 because ye say that 
I cast out devils "through Beelzebub. * Luke xi. 

i", ia 

Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of 
your father ye will do; he was a murderer 
from the begmning, and abode not in the truth, 
because there is no truth in him. "When he 
speaketh a he, he speaketh of his own : for he is a 
liar, and the father of it. John viii. 44. 

And supper being ended, (the devil having 
now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's 
son to betray him.) John xiii. 2. 

But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled 
thine heart to he to the Holy Ghost, and to keep 
back part of the price of the "land ? Acts v. 3. 

To open their eyes, and to turn them from dark- 
ness to light, and" from the power of Satan unto 
God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, 
and an inheritance among them which are sancti- 
fied by faith that is in me. Acts xxvi 18. 

And the God of peace shah bruise Satan under 
your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus 
Christ be with you. Amen. Rom. xvi. 20. 

Lest Satan should get an advantage of us ; for 
we are not ignorant of his devices. 2 Cor. ii. 11. 

In whom tbe God of this world hath blinded the 
minds of them which believe not, lest the light of 
the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of 
God, should shine unto them 2 Cor. iv. 4. 

Wherein in time past ye walked according to 
the course of this world, according to the prince 
of the power of the air, the spirit that now work- 
eth in the children of disobedience. Eph. ii 2. 

Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may 
be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For 
we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against 
principalities, against powers, against the rulers 
of the darkness of this world, against spiritual 
wickedness in high places. Eph. vi 11, 12. 

For some are already turned aside after Satan. 
1 Timothy v. 15. 

Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of 
flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part 
of the same ; that through death he might destroy 
him that had the powerof death, that is the devil. 
Heb. ii. 14. 

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the 
devil, and he will flee from you. James iv. 1. 

Be sober, be vigilant ; because your adversary 
the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking 
whom he may devour ; whom resist steadfast in 
the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are ac- 



complished in vour brethren that are in the world. 
1 Peter v. 8, 9" 

He that committeth sin is of the devil ; for the 
devil sinneth from the beginning. For tins purpose 
the Son of God was manifested, that he might de- 
stroy the works of the devil. 

In this the children of God are manifest and the 
children of the devil ; whosoever doeth not righ- 
teousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not 
his brother. 1 John hi. 8. 10. 

Ye are of God, little children, and have over- 
come them ; because greater is he that is in you. 
than he that is in the world. 1 John iv. 4. 

And the angels which kept not their first estate. 
but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in 
everlasting chains, under darkness, unto the judg- 
ment of the great day. Jude 6. 

He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed 
in white raiment ; and I will not blot out his name 
out of the book of life, but I will confess his name 
before my Father, and before his angels. Rev. 
hi. 5. 

And there was war in heaven ; Michael and his 
angels fought against the dragon ; and the dragon 
fought and his angels, And prevailed not ; neither 
was their place found any more in heaven. And 
the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, 
called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the 
whole world ; he was cast out into the earth, and 
his angels were cast out with him. Therefore re- 
joice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Wo 
to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea ! for 
the devil is come down unto you, having great 
wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a 
short time. Rev. xh. 7, 8, 9, 12. 

And he laid hold on the dragon, that old ser- 
pent, which is the DeviL and Satan, and bound 
him a thousand years. And when the thousand 
years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his 
prison. And the devil that deceived them was 
cast into a lake of fire and brimstone, where the 
beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tor- 
mented day and night, for ever and ever. Rev. xx. 
2,7,10. 



DISCOURSE VII. 

Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings 
of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him to a wise 
man, which built his house upon a rock : And the 
the rain descended, and the floods came, and the 
winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it 
fell not ; for it was founded upon a rock. And every 
one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth 
them not, shah be likened unto a foolish man, 
which built his house upon the sand: And the 
rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds 
blew, and beat upon that house ; and it fell ; and 
great was the fall of it. Matt. vii. 24 — 27. 

At that time. Jesus answered and said, I thank 
thee, O Father ! Lord of heaven and earth, be- 
cause thou hast hid these things from the wise 
and prudent, and hast revealed "them unto babes. 
Matt. xi. 25. 

Then shall ye begin to say, we have eaten and 
drank in thy presence, and thou hast taught in 
our streets. But he shall say, I teU you, I know 
you not whence ye are; depart from me all ye 
workers of iniquity. Luke xiii. 26, 27. 

For not the hearers of the law are just before 
God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. 
Rom. ii. 13. 

And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not 



120 



APPENDIX. 



with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring 
unto you the testimony of God. For I determined 
not to know any thing among you, save Jesus 
Christ and him crucified. And my speech and 
my preaching was not with enticing words of 
man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit 
and of power. That your faith should not stand 
in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. 
Now we have received not the spirit of the world, 
but the Spirit which is of God; that we might 
know the things that are freely given to us of God. 
Which things also we speak, not in the words 
which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the 
Holy Ghost teacheth ; comparing spiritual things 
with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not 
the things of the Spirit of God ; for they are foolish- 
ness unto him ; neither can he know them, because 
they are spiritually discerned. 1 Cor. ii. 1, 2, 4, 5, 
12/13, 14. 

For the wisdom of this world is foolishness 
with God. 1 Cor. iii. 19. 

For the kingdom of God is not in word, hut in 
power. 1 Cor. iv. 20. 

Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be 
the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not 
with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God ; 
not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of 
the heart. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves 
to think any thing as of ourselves ; but our suffi- 
ciency is of God: who also hath made us able 
ministers of the New Testament ; not of the let- 
ter, but of the spirit ; for the letter killeth, but the 
spirit giveth life. 2 Cor. hi. 3, 5, 6. 

That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Fa- 
ther of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wis- 
dom and revelation in the knowledge of him ; The 
eyes of your understanding being enlightened; 
that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, 



and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance 
in the saints. And what is the exceeding great- 
ness of his power to us-ward who believe, accord- 
ing to the working of his mighty power. Eph. i. 
17, 18, 19. 

And you hath he quickened, who were dead in 
trespasses and sins. For we are his workmanship, 
created in Christ Jesus unto good works. Eph. ii. 
1, 10. 

For our gospel came not unto you in word only, 
but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in 
much assurance. 1 Thes. i. 5. 

Of his own will begat he us with the word of 
truth, that we should be a kind of first-fruits of his 
creatures. 

But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers 
only, deceiving yourselves. For if any be a hearer 
of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man 
beholding his natural face in a glass. For he be- 
holdeth himself, and goeth Ins way, and straight- 
way forgetteth what manner of man he was. But 
whoso looKeth into the perfect law of liberty, and 
continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, 
but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed 
in his deed. James i. 18, 22 — 25. 

But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priest- 
hood, an holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye 
should show forth the praises of him who has call- 
ed you out of darkness into his marvellous light. 
1 Peter ii. 9. 

But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and 
ye know all tilings. 

But the anointing which ye have received of 
him abideth in you ; and ye need not that any 
man teach you ; but as the same anointing teacheth 
you of all "things, and is truth, and is no lie, and 
even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in lnm 
1 John ii. 20, 27. 



SERMONS 



ON THE 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



PREFACE. 

The doctrine which is most urgently, and most frequently insisted on in the 
following volume, is that of the depravity of human nature ; and it were certainly 
cruel to expose the unworthiness of man for the single object of disturbing him. 
But the cruelty is turned into kindness, when, along with the knowledge of the 
disease, there is offered an adequate and all-powerful remedy. It is impossible to 
have a true perception of our own character, in the sight of God, without feeling 
our need of acquittal ; and in opposition to every obstacle, which the justice of 
God seems to hold out to it, this want is provided for in the Gospel. And it is 
equally impossible, to have a true perception of the character of God, as being 
utterly repugnant to sin, without feeling the need of amendment ; and in opposition 
to every obstacle, which the impotency of man holds out to it, this want is also 
provided for in the Gospel. There we behold the amplest securities for the peace 
of the guilty. But there do we also behold securities equally ample for their 
progress, and their perfection in holiness. Insomuch, that in every genuine 
disciple of the New Testament, we not only see one who, delivered from the 
burden of his fears, rejoices in hope of a coming glory — but we see one who, set 
free from the bondage of corruption, and animated by a new love and a new desire, 
is honest in the purposes, and strenuous in the efforts, and abundant in the works 
of obedience. He feels the instigations of sin, and in this respect he differs from 
an angel. But he follows not the instigations of sin, and in this respect he diners 
from a natural or unconverted man. He may experience the motions of the 
flesh — but he walks not after the flesh. So that in him we may view the picture 
of a man, struggling with effect against his earth-born propensities, and yet 
hateful to himself for the very existence of them — holier than any of the people 
around him, and yet humbler than them all — realizing, from time to time, a posi- 
tive increase to the grace and excellency of his character, and yet becoming more 
tenderly conscious every day of its remaining deformities — gradually expanding 
in attainment as well as in desire, towards the light and the liberty of heaven, 
and yet groaning under a yoke from which death alone will fully emancipate him. 

When time and space have restrained an author of sermons from entering on 
what may be called the ethics of Christianity, — it is tho more incumbent on him 
to avouch of the doctrine of the gospel, that while it provides directly for the 
peace of a sinner, it provides no less directly and efficiently for the purity of his 
practice — that faith in this doctrine never terminates in itself, but is a mean to holi- 
ness as an end — and that he who truly accepts of Christ, as the alone foundation of 
his meritorious acceptance before God, is stimulated, by the circumstances of his new- 
condition, to breathe holy purposes, and to abound in holy performances. He is 
created anew unto good works. He is made the workmanship of God in Christ Jesus. 

The anxious enforcement of one great lesson on the part of a writer, generally 
proceeds from the desire to effect a full and adequate conveyance, into the mind 
of another, of some truth which has filled his own mind, by a sense of its im- 
portance ; and, in offering this volume to the public, the author is far from being 
insensible to the literary defects that from this cause may be charged upon it. 
He knows, in particular, that throughout these discourses there is a frequent 



122 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



recurrence of the same idea, though generally expressed in different language, 
and with some new speciality, either in its bearing or in its illustration. And he 
farther knows, that the habit of expatiating on one topic may be indulged to such 
a length, as to satiate the reader, and that, to a degree, far beyond the limits of 
his forbearance. 

And yet, if a writer be conscious that, to gain a reception for his favorite doc- 
trine, he must combat with certain elements of opposition, in the taste, or the 
pride, or the indolence, of those whom he is addressing, this will only serve to 
make him the more importunate, and so to betray him still farther into the fault 
of redundancy. If the lesson he is urging be of an intellectual character, he will 
labour to bring it home, as nearly as possible, to the understanding. If it be a 
moral lesson, he will labour to bring it home, as nearly as possible, to the heart. 
It is difficult, and it were hard to say in how far it would be right, to restrain 
this propensity in the pulpit, where the high matters of salvation are addressed 
to a multitude of individuals, who bring before the minister every possible variety 
of taste and of capacity ; and it it no less difficult, when the compositions of the 
pulpit are transferred to the press, to detach from them a peculiarity by which 
their whole texture may be pervaded, and thus to free them from what may be 
counted by many to be the blemish of a very great and characteristic deformity. 

There is, however, a difference between such truths as are merely of a specu- 
lative nature, and such as are allied with practice and moral feeling ; and much 
ought to be conceded to this difference. With the former, all repetition may 
often be superfluous ; with the latter, it may just be by earnest repetition, that 
their influence comes to be thoroughly established over the mind of an inquirer. 
And, if so much as one individual be gained over in this way to the cause of 
righteousness, he is untrue to the spirit and to the obligations of his office, 
who would not, for the sake of this one, willingly hazard all the rewards, and all 
the honours of literary estimation. 

And, if there be one truth which, more than another, should be habitually 
presented to the notice, and proposed to the conviction of fallen creatures, it is 
the humbling truth of their own depravity. This is a truth which may be re- 
cognized and read in every exhibition of unrenewed nature ; but it often lurks 
under a specious disguise, and it is surely of the utmost practical importance to 
unveil and elicit a principle, which, when admitted into the heart, may be con- 
sidered as the great basis of a sinner's religion. 



SERMON I. 

The Necessity of the Spirit to give Effect to the Preaching of the Gospel. 

"And my speech, and my preaching, was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration 
of the Spirit and of power : that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of man but iu the power of 
God." — 1 Corinthians, ii. 4, 5, 



Paul, in his second epistle to the Co- 
rinthians has expressed himself to the same 
effect as in the text, in the following words : 
" Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to 
think any thing as of ourselves; but our 
sufficiency is of God ; who also hath made 
us able ministers of the New Testament; 
not of the letter, but of the Spirit." 

In both these passages, the Apostle points 
to a speciality in the work of a Christian 
teacher, — a something essential to its suc- 
cess, and, which is not essential to the pro- 
ficiency of scholars in the ordinary branches 
of education, — an influence that is beyond 



the reach of human power and human wis- 
dom ; and to obtain which, immediate re- 
course must be had, in the way of prayer 
and dependence, to the power of God. With- 
out attempting a full exposition of these dif- 
ferent verses, we shall, first, endeavour to 
direct your attention to that part of the work 
of a Christian teacher, which it has in com- 
mon with any other kind of education ; and, 
secondly, offer a few remarks on the spe- 
ciality that is adverted to in the text. 

I. And here it must be admitted, that 
even in the ordinary branches of human 
learning, the success of the teacher, on the 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



123 



one hand, and the proficiency of the scho- 
lars on the other, are still dependent on the 
will of God. It is true, that in this case, 
we are not so ready to feel our depend- 
ence. God is apt to be overlooked in all 
those cases where he acts with uniformity. 
Wherever we see, what we call, the opera- 
tion of a law of nature, we are apt to shut 
our eyes against the operation of his hand, 
and faith in the constancy of this law, is 
sure to beget, in the mind, a sentiment of 
independence on the power and will of the 
Deity. Now, in the matters of human edu- 
cation, God acts with uniformity. Let there 
be zeal and ability on the part of the teacher, 
and an ordinary degree of aptitude on the 
part of the taught, — and the result of their 
vigorous and well sustained co-operation 
may in general be counted upon. Let the 
parent, who witnesses his son's capacity, 
and his generous ambition for improvement, 
send him to a well qualified instructor, and 
he will be filled with the hopeful sentiment 
of his future eminence, without any refer- 
ence to God whatever, — without so much as 
ever thinking of his purpose or of his agency 
in the matter, or its once occurring to him 
to make the proficiency of his son the sub- 
ject of prayer. This is the way in which 
nature, by the constancy of her operations, 
is made to usurp the place of God : and it 
goes far to spread, and to establish the de- 
lusion, when we attend to the obvious fact, 
that a man of the most splendid genius may 
be destitute of piety ; that he may fill the office 
of an instructor with the greatest talent and 
success, and yet be without reverence for 
God, and practically disown him ; and that 
thousands of our youth may issue every year 
warm from the schools of Philosophy, stored 
with all her lessons, and adorned with all her 
accomplishments, and yet be utter strangers 
to the power of godliness, and be filled with 
an utter distaste and antipathy for its name. 
All this helps on the practical conviction, 
that common education is a business, with 
which prayer and the exercise of depend- 
ence on God, have no concern. It is true 
that a Christian parent will see through the 
vanity of this delusion. Instructed to make 
his requests known unto God in all things, 
he will not depose him from the supremacy 
of his power and of his government over 
this one thing, — he will commit to God the 
progress of his son in every one branch of 
education he may put him to, — and, know- 
ing that the talent of every teacher, and the 
continuance of his zeal, and his powers of 
communication, and his faculty of interest- 
ing the attention of his pupils,— that all 
these are the gifts of God, and may be with- 
drawn by him at pleasure, — he will not suf- 
fer the regular march and movement of 
what is visible or created to cast him out of 
his dependence on the Creator. He will 
see that everyone element which enters into 



the business of education, and conspires to 
the result of an accomplished and a well- 
informed scholar, is in the hand of the Deity, 
and he w 7 ill pray for the continuation of 
these elements, — and while science is raising 
her wondrous monuments, and drawing the 
admiration of the world after her, — it re- 
mains to be seen, on the day of the revela- 
tion of hidden things, whether the prayers 
of the humble and derided Christian, for a 
blessing on those to whom he has confided 
the object of his tenderness, have not sus- 
tained the vigour and brilliancy of those 
very talents on which the world is lavishing 
the idolatry of her praise. 

Let us now conceive the very ablest of 
these teachers, to bring all his powers and 
all his accomplishments, to bear on the sub- 
ject of Christianity. Has he skill in the 
languages? The very same process by 
which he gets at the meaning of any ancient 
author, carries him to a fair and faithful ren- 
dering of the scriptures of the Old and New 
Testament. Has he a mind enlightened 
and exercised on questions of erudition ? 
The very same principles which qualify 
him to decide on the genuineness of any 
old publication, enable him to demonstrate 
the genuineness of the Bible, and how fully 
sustained it is on the evidence of history. 
Has he that sagacity and comprehension of 
talent, by which he can seize on the leading 
principles which run through the writings 
of some eminent philosopher ? This very ex- 
ercise may be gone through on the writings 
of Inspiration; and the man, who, with the 
works of Aristotle before him can present the 
world with the best system or summary of 
his principles, might transfer these very pow- 
ers to the works of the Apostles and Evan- 
gelists, and present the world with a just 
and interesting survey of the doctrines of 
our faith. And thus it is, that the man who 
might stand the highest of his fellows in 
the field of ordinary scholarship, might turn 
his entire mind to the field of Christianity ; 
and, by the very same kind of talent, which 
would have made him the most eminent of 
all the philosophers, he might come to be 
counted the most eminent of all the theolo- 
gians ; and he who could have reared to his 
fame some monument of literary genius 
might now, by the labours of his midnigh 
oil, rear some beauteous and consistent fabric 
of orthodoxy, strengthened, in all its parts, 
by one unbroken chain of reasoning, and 
recommended throughout by the powers of 
a persuasive and captivating eloquence. 

So much for the talents which a Christian 
teacher may employ, in common with other 
teachers, and even though they did make 
up all the qualifications necessary for his 
office, there would still be a call, as we said 
before, for the exercise of dependence upon 
God. Well do we know, that both he and 
his hearers would be apt to put their faith 



124 



DEPRAVITY OF 



HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



in the uniformity of nature ; and forgetting 
that it is the inspiration of the Almighty 
which giveth and preserveth the understand- 
ing of ali his creatures, might be tempted to 
repose that confidence in man, which dis- 
places God from the sovereignty that belongs 
to him. But what we wish to prepare you 
for, by the preceding observations, is, that 
you may understand the altogether peculiar 
call, that there is for dependence on God in 
the case of a Christian teacher. We have made 
a short enumeration of those talents which 
a teacher of Christianity might possess, in 
common with other teachers ; but it is for 
the purpose of proving that he might pos- 
sess them all, and heightened to such a de- 
gree, if you will, as would have made him 
illustrious on any other field, and yet be ut- 
terly destitute of powers for acquiring him- 
self, or of experience for teaching others, 
that knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ 
which is life everlasting. 

With the many brilliant and imposing 
things which he may have, there is one 
thing which he may not have, and the want 
of that one thing may form an invincible 
barrier to his usefulness in the vineyard of 
Christ. If, conscious that he wants it, he 
seeks to obtain from God the sufficiency 
which is not in himself, then he is in a likely 
way of being put in possession of that power, 
which alone is mighty to the pulling down 
of strong holds. But if he, on the one hand, 
proudly conceiving the sufficiency to be in 
himself, enters with aspiring confidence into 
the field of argument, and think that he is 
to carry all before him, by a series of invin- 
cible demonstration; or, if his people, on 
the other hand, ever ready to be set in mo- 
tion by the idle impulse of novelty, or to be 
seduced by the glare of human accomplish- 
ments, come in trooping multitudes around 
him, and hang on the eloquence of his lips, 
or the wisdom of his able and profound un- 
derstanding, a more unchristian attitude 
cannot be conceived, nor shall we venture 
to compute the weekly accumulation of 
guilt which may come upon the parties, 
when such a business as this is going on. 
How little must the presence of God be felt 
in that place where the high functions of 
the pulpit are degraded into a stipulated ex- 
change of entertainment on the one side, 
and of admiration on the other; and surely 
it were a sight to make angels weep when 
a weak and vapouring mortal, surrounded 
by his fellow sinners, and hastening to the 
grave and the judgment along with them, 
finds it a dearer object to his bosom, to regale 
his hearers by the exhibition of himself, than 
to do in plain earnest the work of his Mas- 
ter, and urge on the business of repentance 
and of faith by the impressive simplicities 
of the Gospel. 

II. This brings us to the second head of I 
discourse, under which we shall attempt to I 



give you a clear view of what that is which 
constitutes a speciality in the work of a 
Christian teacher. And to carry you at 
once by a few plain instances to the matter 
we are aiming to impress upon you, let us 
suppose a man to take up his Bible, and 
with the same powers of attention and un 
ders.tanding which enable him to compre- 
hend the subject of any other book, there 
is much in this book also which he will be 
able to perceive and to talk of intelligently. 
Thus, for example, he may come, by the 
mere exercise of his ordinary powers, to 
understand that it is the Holy Spirit which 
taketh of the things of Christ and showeth 
them to the mind of man. But is not his 
understanding of this truth, as it is put 
down in the plain language of the New 
Testament, a very different thing from the 
Holy Spirit actually taking of these things 
and showing them unto him 1 Again, he will 
be able to say, and to annex a plain mean- 
ing to what he says, that man is rescued 
from his natural darkness about the things 
of God, by God who created the light out 
of darkness shining in his heart, and giving 
him the light of the knowledge of his glory 
in the face of Jesus Christ. But is not his 
saying this, and understanding this, by tak- 
ing up these words in the same obvious 
way in which any man of plain and honest 
understanding would do, a very different 
thing from God actually putting forth his 
creative energy upon him, and actually 
shining upon his heart, and giving him that 
light and that knowledge which are ex- 
pressed in the passage here alluded to? 
Again, by the very same exercise where- 
with he renders the sentence of an old au- 
thor into his own language, and perceives 
the meaning of that sentence, will he annex 
a meaning to the following sentence of the 
Bible — " the natural man receiveth not the 
things of the Spirit of God, for they are 
foolishness unto him; neither can he know 
them, because they are spiritually discern- 
ed." By the mere dint of that shrewdness 
and sagacity with which nature has en- 
dowed him, he will perceive a meaning 
here which you will readily acknowledge 
could not be perceived by a man in a state 
of idiotism. In the case of the idiot, there 
is a complete barrier against his ever ac- 
quiring that conception of the meaning of 
this passage, which is quite competent to a 
man of a strong and accomplished under- 
standing. For the sake of illustration, we 
may conceive this poor outcast from the 
common light of humanity, in some unac- 
countable fit of attention, listening to the 
sound of these words, and making some 
strenuous but abortive attempts to arrive 
at the same comprehension of them with a 
man whose reason is entire. But he can- 
not shake off* the fetters which the hand of 
nature has laid upon his understanding, 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



125 



and he goes back again to the dimness and 
delirium of his unhappy situation ; and his 
mind locks itself up in the prison-hold of 
its confined and darkened faculties ; and if, 
in his mysterious state of existence, he 
formed any conception whatever of the 
words now uttered in your hearing, we may 
rest assured that it stands distinguished by 
a wide and impassable chasm, from the 
conception of him, who has all the com- 
mon powers and perceptions of the species. 

Now, we would ask what kind of con- 
ception is that which a man of entire facul- 
ties may form 1 Only grant us the unde- 
niable truth, that he may understand how 
he cannot discern the things of the Spirit, 
unless the Spirit reveal them to him ; and 
yet with this understanding, he may not be 
one of those in behalf of whom the Spirit 
hath actually interposed with his peculiar 
office of revelation ; and then you bring 
into view another barrier, no less insur- 
mountable than that which fixes an immu- 
table distinction between the conceptions 
of an idiot and of a man of sense, — even 
that wonderful barrier which separates the 
natural from the spiritual man. You can 
conceive him struggling with every power 
which nature has given him to work his 
way through this barrier. You can con- 
ceive him vainly attempting, by some en- 
ergies of his own, to force an entrance 
into that field of light where every object 
of faith has the bright colouring of reality 
thrown over it, — where he can command a 
clear view of the things of eternity, — w T here 
spiritual truth comes home with effect upon 
his every feeling and his every conviction, — 
where he can expatiate at freedom over a 
scene of manifestation, which the world 
knoweth not, — and breathe such a peace, 
and such a joy, and such a holiness, and 
such a superiority to time, and such a de- 
votedness of all his affections to the things 
which are above, as no man of the highest 
natural wisdom can ever reach with all his 
attention to the Bible, and all the efforts of 
his sagacity, however painful, to unravel, 
and to compare and to comprehend its pas- 
sages. And it is indeed a deeply interest- 
ing object to see a man of powerful under- 
standing thus visited with an earnest desire 
after the light of the gospel, and toiling at 
the entrance with all the energies which 
belong to him,— pressing into the service 
all the resources of argument and philoso- 
phy,— mustering to the high enterprise, his 
attention, and his conception, and his rea- 
j son, and his imagination, and the whole 
host of his other faculties, on which science 
has conferred her imposing names, and laid 
before us in such a pompous catalogue, as 
might tempt us to believe, that man, by one 
mighty grasp of his creative mind, can 
make all truth his own, and range at plea- 
sure over the wide variety of her domin- 



ions. How natural to think that the same 
powers and habits of investigation which 
carried him to so respectable a height in 
the natural sciences will enable him to clear 
his way through all the darkness of the- 
ology. It is well that he is seeking, — for 
if he persevere and be in earnest, he will 
obtain an interest in the promise, and will 
at length find ; — but not till he find, in the 
progress of those inquiries on which he en 
tered with so much alacrity, and prosecuted 
with so much confidence, that there is a 
barrier between him and the spiritual dis- 
cernment of his Bible, which all the powers 
of philosophy cannot scale, — not till he find, 
that he must cast down his lofty imagina- 
tions, and put the pride of all his powers 
and his pretensions away from him, — not till 
he find, that, divested of those fancies which 
deluded his heart into a feeling of its own 
sufficiency, he must become like a little 
child, or one of those babes to whom God 
reveals the things which he hides from the 
wise and from the prudent, — not till he find, 
that the attitude of self-dependence must be 
broken down, and he be brought to acknow- 
ledge that the light he is aspiring after, is 
not created by himself, but must be made 
to shine upon him at the pleasure of an- 
other, — not in short, till, humbled by the 
mortifying experience that many a simple 
cottager who reads his Bible and loves his 
Saviour has got before him, he puts himself 
on a level with the most illiterate of them 
all, and prays that light and truth may 
beam on his darkened understanding from 
the sanctuary of God. 

We read of the letter, and we read also 
of the spirit, of the New Testament. It 
would require a volume, rather than a sin- 
gle paragraph of a single sermon, to draw 
the line between the one and the other. 
But you will readily acknowledge that there 
are many things of this book which a man, 
though untaught by the Spirit of God, may 
be made to know. One of the simplest in- 
stances is, he may learn the number of 
chapters in every book, and the number of 
verses in every chapter. But is this all? 
No, — for by the natural exercise of his me- 
mory he may be able to master all its his- 
torical information. And is this all? No, 
for by the natural exercise of his judgment 
he may compare scripture with scripture,— 
he may learn what its doctrines are, — he 
may demonstrate the orthodoxy of every 
one article in our national confession, — he 
may rank among the ablest and most judi- 
cious of the commentators, — he may read, 
and with understanding, too, many a pon- 
derous volume, — he may store himself with 
the learning of many generations, — he may 
be familiar with all the systems, and have 
mingled with all the controversies, — and 
yet, with a mind supporting as it does the 
burden of the erudition of whole libraries, 



126 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



he may have gotten to himself no other 
wisdom than the wisdom of the letter of 
the New Testament. The man's creed, with 
all its arranged and its well weighed arti- 
cles, may be no better than the dry bones 
in the vision of Ezekiel, put together into a 
skeleton, and fastened with sinews, and 
covered with flesh and skin, and exhibiting 
to the eye of the spectators, the aspect, 
and the lineaments of a man, but without 
breath, and remaining so, till the Spirit of 
God breathed into it, and it lived. And it 
is in truth a sight of wonder, to behold a 
man who has carried his knowledge of 
scripture as far as the wisdom of man can 
carry it, — to see him blest with all the light 
which nature can give, but labouring under 
all the darkness which no power of nature 
can dispel, — to see this man of many ac- 
complishments, who can bring his every 
power of demonstration to bear upon the 
Bible, carrying in his bosom a heart un- 
cheered by any one of its consolations, un- 
moved by the influence of any one of its 
truths, unshaken out of any one attachment 
to the world, and an utter stranger to those 
high resolves, and the power of those great 
and animating prospects, which shed a glory 
over the daily walk of a believer, and give 
to every one of his doings the high charac- 
ter of a candidate for eternity. 

We are quite aware of the doubts which 
this is calculated to excite in the mind of 
the hearer, — nor is it possible within the 
compass of an hour to stop and satisfy them 
all ; or to come to a timely conclusion, with- 
out leaving a number of unresolved ques- 
tions behind us. 

There is one, however, which we cannot 
pass without observation. Does not this 
doctrine of a revelation of the Spirit, it may 
be asked, additional to the revelation of the 
word, open a door to the most unbridled 
variety? May it not give a sanction to any 
conceptions of any visionary pretenders, 
and clothe in all the authority of inspira- 
tion a set of doctrines not to be found within 
the compass of the written record ? Does 
it not set aside the usefulness of the Bible, 
and break in upon the unity and consis- 
tency of revealed truth, by letting loose 
upon the world a succession of fancies, as 
endless and as variable as are the caprices 
of the human imagination ? All very true, 
did we ever pretend that the office of the 
Spirit was to reveal any thing additional to 
the information, whether in the way of doc- 
trine or of duty, which the Bible sets before 
us. But his office, as defined by the BibJe 
itself, is not to make known to us any truths 
which are not contained in the Bible; but to 
make clear to our understandings the truths 
which are contained in it. He opens our 
understandings to understand the Scrip- 
tures. The word of God is called the sword 
of the Spirit. It is the instrument by which 



the Spirit worketh. He does not tell us any 
thing that is out of the record ; but all that 

is within it he sends home, with clearness 
and effect, upon the mind. He does not 
make us wise above that which is written ; 
but he makes us wise, up to that which is 
written. When a telescope is directed to 
some distant landscape, it enables us to see 
what we could not otherwise have seen; 
but it does not enable us to see any thing 
which has not a real existence in the pros- 
pect before us. It does not present to the 
eye any delusive imagery, — neither is that a 
fanciful and fictitious scene which it throws 
open to our contemplation. The natural 
eye saw nothing but blue land stretching 
along the distant horizon. By the aid of 
the glass, there bursts upon it a charming 
variety of fi Ids, and woods, and spires, and 
villages. Yet who would say that the glass 
added one feature to this assemblage ? It 
discovers nothing to us which is not there ; 
nor, out of that portion of the book of na- 
ture which we are employed in contem- 
plating, does it bring into view a single 
character which is not really and previously 
inscribed upon it. And so of the Spirit. 
He does not add a single truth, or a single 
character, to the book of revelation. He 
enables the spiritual man to see what the 
natural man cannot see; but the spectacle 
which he lays open is uniform and immu- 
table. It is the word of God which is ever 
the same; — and he, whom the Spirit of God 
has enabled to look to the Bible with a clear 
and affecting discernment, sees no phantom 
passing before him ; but amid all the vision- 
ary extravagance with which he is charged, 
can, for every one article of his faith, and 
every one duty of his practice, make his 
triumphant appeal to the law and to the 
testimony. 

We trust that this may be made clear 
by one example. We have not to travel 
out of the record for the purpose of having 
this truth made known to us, — that God is 
every where present. It meets the obser- 
vation of the natural man in his reading 
of the Bible ; and he understands, or thinks 
he understands, the terms in which it is 
delivered ; and he can speak of it with con- 
sistency; and he ranks it with the other 
attributes of God; and he gives it an avowed 
and formal admission among the articles 
of his creed ; and yet, with all this parade 
of light and knowledge, he, upon the sub- 
ject of the all-seeing and ever-present Deity, 
labours under all the obstinacy of an habit- 
ual blindness. Carry him abroad, and you 
will find that the light which beams upon 
his senses, from the object of sight, com- 
pletely overpowers that light which ought 
to beam upon his spirit, from this object 
of faith. He may occasionally think of it 
as he does of other things ; but for every 
one practical purpose the thought aban- 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 127 



dons him, so soon as he goes into the next 
company or takes a part in the next 
worldly concern, which, in the course of 
his business, comes round to him. It com- 
pletely disappears as an element of conduct, 
and he talks, and thinks, and reasons just 
as he would have done, had his mind, in 
reference to God, been in a state of entire 
darkness. If any thing like a right con- 
ception of the matter ever exist in his heart, 
the din and the day light of the world 
drive it all away from him. Now, to recti- 
fy this case, it is surely not necessary, that 
the Spirit add any thing to the truth of 
God's omnipresence, as it is put down in 
the written record. It will be enough, that 
he gives to the mind upon which he ope- 
rates, a steady and enduring impression of 
this truth. Now, this is one part of his 
office, and accordingly it is said of the unc- 
tion of the Spirit, that it is an unction which 
remaineth. Neither is it necessary that the 
light, which he communicates, should con- 
sist in any vision which he gives to the 
eye, or in any bright impression upon the 
fancy, of any one thing not to be found 
within the pages of the Bible. It will be 
enough if he give a clear and vigorous ap- 
prehension of the truth, just as it is written, 
to the understanding. Though the Spirit 
should do no more than give vivacity and 
effect to the truth of the constancy of God's 
presence, just as it stands in the written 
record — this will be quite enough to make 
the man who is under its influence carry 
an habitual sense of God about with him, 
think of him in the shop and in the market- 
place, walk with him all the day long, and 
feel the same moral restraint upon his 
doings, as if some visible superior, whose 
virtues he revered, and whose approbation 
he longed after, haunted his every footstep, 
and kept an attentive eye fastened upon 
the whole course of his history. The natu- 
ral man may have sense, and he may have 
sagacity, and a readiness withal to admit 
the constancy of God's presence, as an un- 
deniable doctrine of the Bible. But to the 
power of this truth he is dead ; and it is 
only to the power of this world's interests 
and pleasures that he is alive. The spiritual 
man is the reverse of all this, and that 
without carrying his conceptions a single 
hair breadth beyond the communications 
of the written message. He makes no pre- 
tensions to wisdom by one jot or one tittle 
beyond the testimony of Scripture, and 
yet, after all, he lives under a revelation to 
which the other is a stranger. It does not 
carry him by a single footstep without the 
field of the written revelation, but it throws 
a radiance over every object within it. It 
furnishes him with a constant light which 
enables him to withstand the domineering 
influence of sight and of sense. He dies 
unto the world, he lives unto God, — and 



the reason is, that there rests upon him a 
peculiar manifestation, by which the truth 
is made visible to the eye of his mind, and 
a peculiar energy, by which it comes home 
upon his conscience. And if you come to 
inquire into the cause of this speciality, it is 
the language of the Bible, confirmed, as we 
believe it to be, by the soundest experience, 
that every power which nature has con- 
ferred upon man, exalted to its highest 
measure,, and called forth to its most stren- 
uous exercise is not able to accomplish it, — 
that it is due to a power above nature, and 
beyond it ; that it is due to what the Apostle 
calls the demonstration of the Spirit, — a de- 
monstration withheld from the self-suni- 
cient exertions of man, and given to his be- 
lieving prayers. 

And here we are reminded of an instruc- 
tive passage in the life of one of our earliest 
and most eminent reformers. When the light 
of divine truth broke in upon his heart, it 
was so new and so delightful to one form- 
erly darkened by the errors of popery, — 
he saw such a power and such an evidence 
along with it, — he was so ravished by its 
beauties, and so carried along by its resist- 
less arguments, that he felt as if he had 
nothing to do, but to brandish those mighty 
weapons, that he might gain all hearts and 
carry every thing before him. But he did 
not calculate on the stubborn resistance of 
corrupt, human nature, to him and to his 
reasonings. He preached and he argued, 
and he put forth all his powers of eloquence 
amongst them. But mortified that so many 
hearts remained hardened, that so many 
hearers resisted him, that the doors of so 
many hearts were kept shut in spite of all 
loud and repeated warnings, that so many 
souls remained unsubdued, and dead in 
trespasses and sins, he was heard to ex- 
claim that old Adam was too strong for 
young Melancthon. 

There is the malignity of the fall which 
adheres to us. There is a power of cor- 
ruption and of blindness along with it, 
which it is beyond the compass of human 
means to overthrow. There is a dark and 
settled depravity in the human character, 
which maintains its gloomy and obstinate 
resistance to all our warnings and all our 
arguments. There is a spirit working in 
the children of disobedience which no 
power of human eloquence can lay. There 
is a covering of thick darkness upon the 
face of all people, a mighty influence abroad 
upon the world, with which the Prince of 
the power of the air keeps his thousands 
and his tens of thousands under him. The 
minister who enters into this field of con- 
flict may have zeal, and talents, and elo- 
quence. His heart may be smitten with 
the love of the truth, and his mind be fully 
fraught with its arguments. Thus armed, 
he may come forth among his people, 



128 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



jSERM. 



flushed with the mighty enterprise of turn- 
ing souls from the dominion of Satan unto 
God. In all the hope of victory he may 
discharge the weapons of his warfare among 
them. Week after week, he may reason 
with them out of the Scriptures. Sabbath 
after Sabbath he may declaim, he may de- 
monstrate, he may put forth every expe- 
dient, he may at one time set in array be- 
fore them the terrors of the law, at another 
he may try to win them by the free offer 
of the Gospel ; and, in the proud confidence 
of success, he may think that nothing can 
withstand him, and that the heart of every 
hearer must give way before the ardour of 
his zeal and the power of his invincible 
arguments. Yes; they may admire him, 
and they may follow him, but the question 
we have to ask is, will they be converted 
by him ? They may even go so far as to 
allow that it is all very true he says. He 
may be their favourite preacher, and when 
he opens his exhortations upon them, there 
may be a deep and a solemn attention in 
every countenance. But how is the heart 
coming on all the while? How do those 
people live, and what evidence are they 
giving of being born again under the power 
of his ministry ? It is not enough to be told 
of those momentary convictions which flash 
from the pulpit, and carry a thrilling influ- 
ence along with them through the hearts of 
listening admirers. Have these hearers of 
the word, become the doers of the word ? 
Have they sunk down into the character of 
humble, and sanctified, and penitent, and 
pains-taking Christians ? Where, where is 
the fruit? And while the preaching of 
Christ is all their joy, has the will of Christ 
become all their directions ? Alas, he may 
look around him, and at the end of the year, 
after all the tumults of a sounding popularity, 
he may find the great bulk of them just 
where they were, — as listless and uncon- 
cerned about the things of eternity, — as ob- 
stinately alienated from God, — as firmly 
devoted to selfish and transitory interests, — 
as exclusively set upon the farm, and the 
money, and the merchandize, — and, with 
the covering of many external decencies, to 
make them as fair and plausible as their 
neighbours around them, proving by a heart 
given, with the whole tide of its affections, 
to the vanities of the world, that they have 
their full share of the wickedness which 
abounds in it. After all his sermons, and 
all his loud and passionate addresses, he 
finds that the power of darkness still keeps 
its ground among them. He is grieved to 
learn that all he has said, has had no more 
effect, than the foolish and the feeble lisp- 
ings of infancy. He is overwhelmed by a 
sense of his own helplessness, and the lesson 
is a wholesome one. It makes him feel 
that the sufficiency is not in him, but in 
God ; it makes him understand that another 



power must be brought to bear upon the 
mass of resistance which is before him ; and 
let the man of confident and aspiring genius, 
who thought he was to assail the dark seats 
of human corruption, and to carry them by 
storm, let him be reduced in mortified and 
dependent humbleness to the expedient of 
the Apostle, let him crave the intercessions 
of his people, and throw himself upon their 
prayers. 

Let us now bring the whole matter to a 
practical conclusion. For the acquirement 
of a saving and spiritual knowledge of the 
gospel, you are on the one hand, to put forth 
all your ordinary powers, in the very same 
way that you do for the acquirement of 
knowledge in any of the ordinary branches 
of human learning. But in the act of doing 
so, you, on the other hand, are to proceed 
on a profound impression of the utter fruit- 
lessness of all your endeavours, unless God 
meet them by the manifestations of his 
Spirit. In other words, you are to read 
your Bible, and to bring your faculties of 
attention, and understanding, and memory, 
to the exercise, just as strenuously as if 
these and these alone could conduct you to 
the light after which you are aspiring. But 
you are at the same time to pray as earn- 
estly for this object, as if God accomplished 
it without your exertions at all, instead of 
accomplishing it in the way he actually 
does, by your exertions. It is when your 
eyes are turned toward the book of God's 
testimony, and not when your eyes are 
turned away from it, that he fulfils upon 
you the petition of the Psalmist, — " Lord, 
do thou open mine eyes, that I may behold 
the wondrous things contained in thy law." 
You are not to exercise your faculties in 
searching after truth without prayer, else 
God will withhold from you his illuminating 
influences. And you are not to pray for truth, 
without exercising your faculties, else God 
will reject your prayers, as the mockery of 
a hypocrite. But you are to do both, and 
this is in harmony with the whole style of 
a Christian's obedience, who is as strenuous 
in doing as if his doings were to accomplish 
all, and as fervent in prayer, as if without 
the inspiring energy of God, all his doings 
were vanity and feebleness. And the great 
Apostle may be quoted as the best exam- 
ple of this observation. 

There never existed a man more active 
than Paul, in the work of the Christian 
ministry. How great the weight and the va- 
riety of his labours ! What preaching, what 
travelling, what writing of letters, whatdaily 
struggling with difficulties, what constant 
exercise of thought in watching over the 
Churches, what a world of perplexity in his 
dealings with men, and in the hard dealings 
of men with him ; and were they friends, 
or were they enemies, how his mind be- 
hooved to be ever on the alert, in counsel 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



129 



ling the one and warding off the hostility 
of the other. Look to all that is visible 
in the life of this Apostle, and you see 
nothing but bustle, and enterprise, and 
vareity. You see a man intent on the fur- 
therance of some great object, and in the 
prosecution of it, as ever diligent, and as 
ever doing, as if the whole burden of it 
lay upon himself, or as if it were reserved 
for the strength of his solitary arm to ac- 
complish it. To this object he conse- 
crated every moment of his time, and even 
when he set him down to the work of a 
tent-maker, for the sake of vindicating the 
purity of his intentions, and holding forth 
an example of honest independence to the 
poorer brethren ; even here, you just see 
another display of the one principle which 
possessed his whole heart, and gave such a 
character of wondrous activity to all the 
days of his earthly pilgrimage. There are 
some, who are so far misled by a kind of 
perverse theology which they have adopted, 
as to hesitate about the lawfulness of being di- 
ligent and doing in the use of means. While 
they are slumbering over their speculation, 
and proving how honestly they put faith 
in it by doing nothing, let us be guided by 
the example of the pains-taking and indus- 
trious Paul, and remember, that never since 
the days of this Apostle, who calls upon us 
to be followers of him, even as he was of 
Christ, — never were the labours of human 
exertion more faithfully rendered, — never 
were the workings of a human instrument 
put forth with greater energy. 

But it forms a still more striking part of 
the example of Paul, that while he did as 
much toward the extension of the Chris- 
tian faith, as if the whole success of the 
cause depended upon his doing, — he prayed 
as much, and as fervently for tins object, as 
if all his doings were of no consequence. 
A fine testimony to the supremacy of God, 
from the man, who, in labours was more 
abundant than any that ever come after 
him, that he counted all as nothing, unless 
God would interfere to put his blessings 
upon all, and to give his efficacy to all ! He 
who looked so busy, and whose hand was 
so constantly engaged, in the work that 
was before him, looked for all his success 
to that help which cometh from the sanc- 
tuary of God. There was his eye directed. 
Thence alone did he expect a blessing upon 
his endeavours. He wrought, and that with 
diligence too, because God bade him ; but 
he also prayed, and that with equal dili- 
gence, because God had revealed to him, 
that plant as he may, and water as he may, 
God alone giveth the increase. He did ho- 
mage to the will of God, by the labours of 
the ever-working minister, — and he did ho- 
mage to the power of God, by the devotions 
of the ever-praying minister. He did not 
say, what signifies my working, for God 



alone can work with effect 1 This is very 
true, but God chooses to work by instru- 
ments—and Paul, by the question, " Lord 
what wilt thou have me to do V expressed 
his readiness to be an instrument in his 
hand. Neither did he say, what signifies 
my praying, for I have got a work here to 
do, and it is enough that I be diligent in the 
performance of it. No — for the power of 
God must be acknowledged, and a sense of 
his power must mingle with all our per- 
formances; and therefore it is that the 
Apostle kept both working and praying, and 
with him they formed two distinct emana- 
tions of the same principle ; and while there 
are many who make these Christian graces 
to neutralize each other, the judicious and 
the clear-sighted Paul, w r ho had received 
the spirit of a sound mind, could give his 
unembarrassed vigour to both these exer- 
cises, and combine, in his own example, 
the utmost diligence in doing, with the 
utmost dependence on him who can alone 
give to that doing all its fruit and all its 
efficacy. 

The union of these two graces has at 
times been finely exemplified in the latter, 
and uninspired ages of the Christian 
Church: and the case of the missionary 
Elliot is the first, and the most impressive 
that occurs to us. His labours, like those 
of the great Apostle, were directed to the 
extension of the vineyard of Christ, — and 
he was among the very first who put forth 
his hand to the breaking up the Ameri- 
can wilderness. For this purpose did he 
set himself down to the acquirement of a 
harsh and barbarous language ; and he be- 
came qualified to confer with savages ; and 
he grappled for years with their untracta- 
ble humours ; and he collected these wan- 
derers into villages; and while other re- 
formers have ennobled their names by the 
formation of a new set of public laws, did 
he take upon him the far more arduous task 
of creating for his untamed Indians, a new 
set of domestic habits ; and such was the 
power of his influence that he carried his 
christianizing system into the very bosom 
of their families; and he spread art, and 
learning, and civilization amongst them ; 
and to his visible labours among his people 
he added the labours of the closet ; and he 
translated the whole Bible into their tongue; 
and he set up a regular provision for the 
education of their children ; and lest the 
spectator who saw his fourteen towns risen 
as by enchantment in the desert, and peo- 
pled by the rudest of his tribes, should ask 
in vain for the mighty power by which 
such wondrous things had been brought to 
pass, — this venerable priest left his testi- 
mony behind him ; and neither overlooking 
the agency of God, nor the agency of man 
as the instrument of God, he tells us in the 
one memorable sentence written by him- 



130 



DEPRAVITY OF 



HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



self at the end of his Indian grammar, that 
" prayers and pains through faith in Christ 
Jesus can do any thing." 

The last inference we shall draw from this 
topic, is the duty and importance of prayer 
among Christians, for the success of the 
ministry of the Gospel. Paul had a high 
sense of the efficacy of prayer. Not ac- 
cording to that refined view of it, which, 
making all its influence to consist in its im- 
proving and moralizing effect upon the 
mind, fritters down to nothing the plain 
import and significancy of this ordinance. 
With him it was a matter of asking and of 
receiving. And just as when in pursuit of 
some earthly benefit which is at the giving 
of another, you think yourselves surer of 
your object the more you multiply the 
number of askers and the number of appli- 
cations — in this very way did he, if we may 
be allowed the expression, contrive to 
strengthen and extend his interest in the 
court of heaven. He craved the interces- 
sion of his people. There were many be- 
lievers formed under his ministry, and each 
of these could bring the prayer of faith to 
bear upon the counsels of God, and bring 
down a larger portion of strength and of 



fitness to rest on the Apostle for making 
more believers, it was a kind of creative 
or accumulating process. After he had 
travelled in birth with his new converts till 
Christ was formed in them — this was the 
use he put them to. It is an expedient 
which harmonizes with the methods of Pro- 
vidence and the will of God, who orders in- 
tercessions, and on the very principle too, 
that he willeth all men to be saved, and to 
come to the knowledge of the truth. The 
intercession of christians, who are already 
formed, is the leaven which is to leaven the 
whole earth with Christianity. It is one of 
the destined instruments in the hand of 
God for hastening the glory of the latter 
days. Take the world at large, and the 
doctrine of intercession, as an engine of 
mighty power, is derided as one of the re- 
veries of fanaticism. This is a subject on 
which the men of the world are in a deep 
slumber ; but there are watchmen who 
never hold their peace day nor night, and 
to them God addresses these remarkable 
words, "Ye that make mention of the 
Lord, keep not silence, and give him no 
rest, till he establish, and till he make Jeru- 
salem a praise in the earth." 



SERMON II. 

The mysterious Aspect of the Gospel to the Men of the World. 

" Then said I, Ah, Lord God ! they say of me, Doth he not speak parables V'—Ezekiel xx. 49. 



In parables, the lesson that is meant to 
be conveyed is to a certain degree shaded 
in obscurity. They are associated by the 
Psalmist with dark sayings — " I will open 
my mouth in a parable, I will utter dark 
sayings of old." We read in the New Tes- 
tament of a parable leaving all the effect of 
an unexplained mystery upon the under- 
standing of the general audience to which 
it was addressed ; and the explanation of 
the parable given to a special few was to 
them the clearing up of a mystery. " It is 
given unto you to know the mysteries of 
the kingdom of heaven ; but to them it is 
not given !" 

The prophets of old were often commis- 
sioned to address their countrymen under 
the guise of symbolical language. This 
threw a veil over the meaning of their com- 
munications ; and though it was a veil of 
such transparency as could be seen through 
by those who looked earnestly and atten- 
tively, and with a humble desire to be 
taught in the will of God, — yet there was 
dimness enough to intercept all the moral, 
and all the significancy, from the minds of 
those who wanted principle to be in earnest; I 



or who wanted patience for the exercise of 
attention; or who wanted such a concern 
about God, a»' either to care very much for 
his will, or to feel that any .thing which re- 
spected him was worth the trouble of a very 
serious investigation. 

They who wanted this' concern and this 
principle, from them was taken away even 
that which they had. God at length ceased 
from his messages, and the Spirit of God 
ceased from his warnings. They who had 
the preparation of all this docility, to them 
more was given. Their honest desire after 
knowledge, was rewarded by the acquire- 
ment of it. They continued to look, and 
to enquire, and at length they were illumi- 
nated ; and thus was fulfilled the saying of 
the Saviour, that " whosoever hath, to him 
shall be given, and he shall have more 
abundantly, — but whosoever hath not, from 
him shall be taken away even that he hath." 

It is not difficult to conceive how the ob- 
scure intimations of Ezekiel would be taken 
by the careless and ungodly men of his 
generation. It is likely that even from the 
naked denunciations of vengeance they 
I would have turned contemptuously away. 



SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT, 

TTilberforce, the chief of England's philan- 
iropists, and Pitt, the prince of her statesmen, 
ere friends. The former was an eminent 
hristian, but at the period of which I am 
)eaking, the latter, though a communicant in 
■ie Established Church, was destitute of grace, 
'e had frequently conversed with him on ex- 
erimental piety, but hitherto had gained no 
rtisfactory evidence, either of Pitt's conversion 
r Divine illumination. Earnestly desiring the 
ilvation of his distinguished friend, he at length 
ivited him to hear his minister, Rev. Mr. Cecil, 
reach. The invitation was accepted, and after 
short time both were seated in the sanctuary, 
he man of God entered. The service com- 
enced. He preached a very faithful sermon 
1 Christian experience. Both listened with 
tention and apparent reverence. Anxious to 
am how his friend had felt and profited under 
ie discourse, he inquired of him how he liked 
ie sermon. " O," said he, "it was all Chinese 
i me ! I could not understand it." 

[Cong. Visiter. 



Komisb traditions and " " 

^.Practices, ^ * ««°«io» to. 
tra f"ion, and t0 ' c * "° regard 

autil °™ upon that ? !UUefro »'- i E 

o^vance of the " W «*• *ti 

not hesitate t0ca)j ^, da y of the 

"desecration „ S f b ««". and . , 

mand »en t . Noiv ' bre «* of the f 0l { 
Suca a doctrine iTjf^^e «P as£ 

;- a ' y atr adidon ;; b ytin tneB 

n Pwef of th ; s ™ e «o»«h Cbur, 
tbe witnesses upon *° W ' H ^te 

Rom '^ Church. P " nk,I «g is a tra ditior 

Our fiv*f 

century." S De J great ^nary 

the Romish y Chm s c f f y of she trad ^ 
61 an<9 w fi!an „ rt „. 



II.] DEPRAVITY OF I 

And it is still more likely that they would 
refuse the impression of them, when offered 
to their notice, under a figurative disguise. 
It is not at all to be supposed that they would 
put forth any activity of mind in quest of 
that which they nauseated, and of that 
which, if ever they had found, they would 
have found to be utterly revolting to all 
their habits of impiety. They are the very 
last men we should expect to meet with at 
the work of a pains-taking search after the 
interpretation of these parables. Nay, they 
would gladly fasten upon the obscurity of 
them both as a circumstance of reproach 
against the prophet, and as an apology for 
their own indifference. And thus it is, that 
to be a teacher of parables might at length 
become a scoff and a by-word ; and the pro- 
phet seems to have felt the force of it as an 
opprobrious designation, seems to be looking 
forward to the mixture of disdain and impa- 
tience with which he would be listened to, 
when God charged him with an allegorical 
communication to his countrymen, and he 
answered, " Ah, Lord God ! they say of me, 
Doth he not speak parables ?" 

Now the question we have to put is — Is 
there no similar plea of resistance ever pre- 
ferred against the faithful messengers of 
God in the present day ? It is true, that in 
our time there is no such thing as a man 
coming amongst you, charged with the ut- 
terance of a direct and personal inspiration. 
But it is the business of every minister truly 
to expound the record of inspiration ; and 
is it not very possible that in so doing he 
may be reproached, not for preaching para- 
bolically, but for preaching mysteriously ? 
Have you never heard of a sermon being 
called mystical ; and what shall we think 
of it, if, in point of fact, this imputation falls 
most readily and most abundantly on the 
sermon that is most pervaded by the spirit, 
and most overrun with the phraseology of 
the New Testament? In that composition 
there are certain terms which recur inces- 
santly, and which would therefore appear 
to represent certain very leading and promi- 
nent ideas. Now, whether are these ideas 
clearly and promptly suggested to your 
mind, by the utterance of terms ? What 
are the general character and effect which 
in your eye is imparted to a sermon, when, 
throughout the whole of it, the words of the 
apostolic vocabulary are ever and anon ob- 
truded upon your hearing — and the whole 
stress of the argument is made to lie on 
such matters as sanctification ; and the 
atonement ; and the blood of the everlasting 
covenant ; and the indwelling of the Holy 
Ghost, who takes up his habitation in the 
soul of the believer ; and salvation by grace ; 
and the spirit of adoption poured forth on 
the heart, and filling it with all the peace 
and joy of a confident reconciliation ; and 
the exercise of fellowship with the Father, 



[TJMAN NATURE. 131 

and the Son ; and the process of growing 
up unto Christ; and the habit of receiving 
out of his fulness, and of beholding with 
open face his glory, so as to be changed 
into the same image, from glory to glory, 
even as by the spirit of the Lord. We are 
not at present asking, if you feel the disgust 
with which unsubdued nature ever listens 
to these representations, or in what degree 
they are offensive to your taste, and pain- 
fully uncongenial with the whole style and 
habit of your literature. But we ask, if 
such terms and such phrases as have now 
been specified, do not spread before the eye 
of your mind an aspect of exceeding dim- 
ness over the preacher's demonstration ? 
Does he not appear to you as if he wrapped 
himself up in the obscurity of a technical 
language, which you are utterly at a loss to 
comprehend ? When the sermon in ques- 
tion is put by the side of some lesson of 
obvious morality, or some exposition of 
those principles which are recognized and 
acted upon in ordinary life, does it not look 
to you as if it was shrouded from common 
observation altogether; and that ere you 
could be initiated into the mystery of such 
language and of such doctrine, you would 
need to describe a mightj^ and still untrod- 
den interval from all your present habits of 
conception ? And yet, what if it be indeed 
the very language and the very doctrine of 
the New Testament ? — if all the jargon that 
is charged on the interpretation of the word 
be the actual word itself? — and if the 
preacher be faithfully conveying the mes- 
sage of the Bible, at the very time that the 
hearer is shielding himself from the impres- 
sion of it by the saying, that he preacheth 
mysteries ? 

But to keep the two parties at a still more 
hopeless distance from each other, — the 
message of such a preacher, incomprehen- 
sible as many of its terms and many of its 
particulars may be, evidently bears a some- 
thing upon it that is fitted to alarm the 
fears, and utterly to thwart the strongest 
tendencies of nature. Let him be just a 
faithful expounder of the Gospel of Jesus 
Christ, and let the blindness of the natural 
man be what it may, still there is scarcely 
a hearer who can fail to perceive, that, an 
terior to the reception of this Gospel, th 
preacher looks upon him as the enemy oi 
God, — and strongly points at such a con- 
troversy between him and his maker, as 
can only be made up through an appointed 
Mediator — and requires of him such a faith 
as will transform his character, and as will 
shift the whole currency of his affections 
and desires — and affirms the necessity of 
such a regeneration, as that all old things 
shall be done away, and all things shall be- 
come new ;— and lets him know, that to be 
a Christian indeed he must die unto sense, 
I he must be crucified unto the world, and, 



1B2 



DEPRAVITY OF 



HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



renouncing its charms and its predilections, 
must learn to have his conversation in hea- 
ven, and to choose God as the strength of 
his heart and his portion for evermore. All 
this flashes plainly and significantly enough, 
through that veil of mysticism which ap- 
pears to overspread the general doctrine of 
the preacher; and imparts a forbidding cha- 
racter to it in the eyes of those to whom 
we are alluding ; and they will be glad of 
any pretence to shun a painful and a re- 
volting contemplation ; and they will com- 
plain of him on the very ground on which 
the Jews of old complained of Ezekiel, as 
a dealer in parables — and while much of 
their antipathy is founded upon his being 
so strict and so spiritual, and so unaccom- 
modating to the general tone of society, 
one of the charges which will be most fre- 
quently and most loudly preferred against 
him, is, that he is so very mysterious. 

In the prosecution of the following dis- 
course, we shall endeavour in the first place 
to state shortly the ground on which the 
religion of the New Testament looks so 
mysterious a thing to the men of the world, 
and then conclude with a short practical 
remonstrance upon this subject. 

I. There are certain experiences of hu- 
man life so oft repeated, and so familiar to 
all our recollections, that when we per- 
ceive, or think we perceive, an analogy be- 
tween them and the matters of religion, 
then religion does not appear to us to be 
mysterious. There is not a more familiar 
exhibition in society than that of a servant 
who performs his allotted work, and who 
obtains his stipulated reward — and we are 
all servants, and one is our master, even 
God. 

There is nothing more common than that 
a. son should acquit himself to the satis- 
faction of his parents, — and we are all the 
children of an universal parent, whom it is 
our part to please in all things. Even when 
that son falls under displeasure, and is either 
visited with compunction or made to re- 
ceive the chastisement of his disobedience, 
there is nothing more common than to 
witness the relentings of an earthly father, 
and the readiness with which forgiveness is 
awarded on the repentance and sorrow of 
the offender, — and we, in like manner, liable 
to err from the pure law of heaven, have 
surely a kind and indulgent Father to deal 
with. And, lastly, there is nothing more 
common than that the loyalty of a zealous 
and patriotic subject should be rewarded by 
the patronage, or at least by the protection 
of the civil magistrate, — and that an act of 
transgression against the laws should be 
visited by an act of vengeance on the part 
-of him who is a terror to evil-doers, while 
a praise to such as do well. And thus it is, 
too, that we are under a lawgiver in heaven 
who is able both to save and to destroy. 



Now so long as the work of religious in- 
struction can be upheld by such analogies 
as these, — so long as the relations of civil or 
of domestic society can be employed to 
illustrate the relation between God and the 
creatures whom he has formed, — so long 
as the recollections of daily experience can 
thus be applied to the method of the divine 
administration, — a vein of perspicuity will 
appear to run through the clear and rational 
exposition of him who has put all the mist 
and all the technicals of an obscure theo- 
logy away from him. All his lessons will 
run in an easy and direct train. Nor do we 
see how it is possible to be bewildered 
amongst such explanations, as are sug- 
gested by the most ordinary doings and 
concerns of human society ; — and did the 
preacher only confine himself to such doc- 
trine, as that God rewards the upright, and 
punishes the rebellious, and upon the im- 
pulse of that compassion which belongs to 
him, takes again the penitent into accept- 
ance, and in the great day of remuneration, 
will give unto every man according to his 
works, — did he only confine himself to 
truths so palpable, and build upon it appli- 
cations so obvious, as just to urge us to the 
performance of duty by the promised re- 
ward, and deter us from the infraction of it 
by the severities of the threatened punish- 
ment, and call us to reformation by affec- 
tionately pleading with us the mercies of 
God, and warn us with all his force and all 
his fidelity, that should we persist in ob- 
stinate impenitence we shall be cut off from 
happiness for ever, — there might be some- 
thing to terrify, — but there would at least be 
nothing to darken or to perplex us in these 
interpretations — nothing that would not 
meet common intelligence, and be helped 
forward by all the analogies of common ob- 
servation, — and should this therefore prove 
the great burden of the preacher's demon- 
stration, we should be the last to reproach 
him, as a dealer in parables, or as a dealer 
in mysteries. 

To attach us the more to this rational 
style of preaching, we cannot but perceive 
that it obtains a kind of experimental coun- 
tenance from the actual distinctions of cha- 
racter which are realized in the peopled 
world around us. Can any thing be more 
evident than that there is a line of separa- 
tion between the sensual and the temperate, 
between the selfish and the disinterested, 
between the sordid and the honourable ; or 
if you require a distinction more strictly 
religious, between the profane and the de- 
cent keeper of all the ordinances ? Do not 
the former do, what, in the matter of it, is 
contrary to the law of God, and the latter 
do, what, in the matter of it, is agreeable 
to that law ? Here then at once we witness 
the two grand divisions of human society, 
in a state of real and visible exemplification 



"•] 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



133 



— and what more is necessary than just to 
employ the most direct and intelligible mo- 
tives of conduct, for persuading men to 
withdraw from one of these divisions, and 
pass over to the other of them? Surely it 
is just as we occupy the higher and the 
lower places in the scale of character, that 
we shall be found on the right and on the 
left hand of the judge on the day of reckon- 
ing: And what more obvious way, then, 
of preparing a people for eternity — than 
just to point our urgency to the one object- 
of prevailing upon men to cross the line 
of separation, to cease from the iniquities 
which abound on the one side of it, and to 
put on the reformations which are practised 
on the other side of it ? For this purpose, 
what else is to be done than plainly to tell 
the whole amount of the interest and obli- 
gation which lies on the side of virtue, and 
as plainly to tell of the ruin and the degrada- 
tion both of character and of prospect which 
lie on the side of vice — to press the accom- 
plishments of a good life on the one band, 
and to denounce the falsehoods and the dis- 
honesties, and the profligacies of a bad life 
on the other, — in a word, to make our 
hearers the good subjects of God, much in 
the same way, as you would propose to 
make them the good servants of their mas- 
ter or the good subjects of their govern- 
ment : and thus by the simple and direct 
enforcements of duty, to shun all the diffi- 
culties of a scholastic theology, and to keep 
clear of all its mysteriousness. 

It is needless to say how much this pro- 
cess is reversed by many a teacher of 
Christianity. It is true that they hold out 
most prominently the need of some great 
transition — but it is a transition most mys- 
teriously different from the act of crossing 
that line of separation, to which we have 
just been adverting. Without referring at 
all in fact to any such line, do they come 
forth from the very outset with one sweep- 
ing denunciation of worth! essness and guilt, 
which they carry round among all the va- 
rieties of character, and by which they 
affirm every individual of the human race, 
to be an undone sinner in the sight of God. 
Instead of bidding him look to other sin- 
ers less deformed by blemishes, and more 
xh in moral accomplishments, than him- 
self, and then attempt to recover his dis- 
tance from the divine favour by the imita- 
tion of them, they bid him think of the 
awful amount of debt and of deficiency 
that lies between the lawgiver in heaven, 
and a whole world guilty before him. They 
speak of a depravity so entire, and of an 
alienation from' God, so deep, and so uni- 
versal, as positively to obliterate that line 
of separation which is supposed to mark 
off those, who, upon the degree of their 
obedience, are rightful claimants to the 
honours of eternity, from those, who, upon 



the degree of their disobedience, are wretch- 
ed outcasts of condemnation. They reduce 
the men of all casts and of all characters, 
to the same footing of worthlessness in the 
sight of God ; and speak of the evil of the 
human heart in such terms, as will sound 
to many a mysterious exaggeration, and, 
like the hearers of Ezekiel, will these not 
be able to comprehend the argument of the 
preacher, when he tells them, though in 
the very language of the Bible, that they 
are the heirs of wrath ; that none of them 
is righteous, no not one; that all flesh have 
corrupted their ways, and have fallen short 
of the glory of God ; that the world at large 
is a lost and a fallen world, and that the 
natural inheritance of all who live in it, is 
the inheritance of a temporal death, and a 
ruined eternity. 

When the preacher goes on in this strain, 
those hearers whom the spirit has not con- 
vinced of sin will be utterly at a loss to un- 
derstand him, — nor are we to wonder, if 
he seem to speak to them in a parable, 
when he speaks of the disease, — that all the 
darkness of a parable should still seem to 
hang over his demonstrations, when as a 
faithful expounder of the revealed will and 
counsel of God, he proceeds to tell them of 
the remedy. For God hath not only made 
known the fearful magnitude of his reckon- 
ing against us, but he has prescribed, and 
with that authority which only belongs to 
him, the way of its settlement ; and that he 
has told us all the works and all the efforts 
of unrenewed nature are of no avail in 
gaining us acceptance, and that he has laid 
the burden of our atonement on him who 
alone was able to bear it ; and he not only 
invites, but he commands, and he beseeches 
us to enter into peace and pardon on the 
footing of that expiation which Christ hath 
made, and of that righteousness which 
Christ hath wrought out for us; and he 
further declares, that we have come into 
the world with such a moral constitution, 
as will not merely need to be repaired, but 
as will need to be changed or made over 
again, ere we be meet for the inheritance 
of the saints; and still for this object does 
he point our eyes to the great Mediator who 
has undertaken, not merely for the forgive- 
ness, but who has undertaken for the sancti- 
fication of all who put their trust in him ; and 
he announces that out of his fulness there 
ever come forth supplies of strength for the 
new obedience of new creatures in Jesus 
Christ our Lord. Now, it is when the 
preacher is unfolding this scheme of salva- 
tion, — it is when he is practically applying 
it to the conscience and the conduct of his 
hearers, — it is when the terms of grace, and 
faith, and sanctification, are pressed into 
frequent employment for the work of these 
very peculiar explanations, — it is when, in- 
stead of illustrating his subject by those 



134 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



analogies of common life which might have 
done for men of an untainted nature, but 
which will not do for the men of this cor- 
rupt world, he faithfully unfolds that econo- 
my of redemption Which God hath actually 
set up for the recovery of our degenerate 
species, — it. is then, that to a hearer still in 
darkness, the whole argument sounds as 
strangely and as obscurely, as if it were 
conveyed to him in an unknown language, 
— it is then, that the repulsion of his nature 
to the truth as it is in Jesus, finds a willing 
excuse in the utter mysteriousness of its 
articles, and its terms ; and gladly does he 
put away from him the unwelcome mes- 
sage, with the remark, that he who delivers 
it, is a speaker of parables, and there is no 
comprehending him. 

It will readily occur as an observation 
upon all that has been delivered, that by the 
great majority of hearers, this imputation 
of mysteriousness is never preferred, — that 
in fact, they are most habituated to this 
style of preaching, — and that they recognise 
the very thing which they value most, and 
are best acquainted with, when they hear 
a sermon replete with the doctrine, and 
abounding in the terms, and uttered in the 
cadence of orthodoxy. Of this we are per- 
fectly aware. The point to carry with the 
great bulk of hearers is. not to conquer 
their disgust at the form of sound words, 
but to conquer their resistance to the power 
of them; to alarm them. by the considera- 
tion, that the influence of the lesson is alto- 
gether a distinct matter from the pleasant- 
ness of the song, — that their ready and de- 
lighted acquiescence in the preaching of the 
faith, may consist with a total want of obe- 
dience to the faith, — and that with all the 
love they bear to the phraseology of the 
gospel, and all their preference for its minis- 
ters, and all their attendance upon its sacra- 
ments, the kingdom of God, however much 
it may have come to them in word, may 
not at all have come to them in power. 
This is a distinct error from the one we 
have been combating, — a weed which grows 
abundantly in another quarter of the field 
altogether, — a perverseness of mind, more 
deceitful than the other, and perhaps still 
more unmanageable, and against which 
the faithful minister has to set himself 
amongst that numerous class of professors, 
who like to hear of the faith, but never ap- 
ply a single practical test to the question, 
Am I in the faith ? who like to hear of re- 
generation, but never put the question, Am 
I really regenerated ? who like to hear that 
without Christ they can do nothing, but 
may be enabled to do all things through 
him strengthening them, but never enter into 
the important personal inquiry, Is he really 
strengthening me, and am I, by my actual 
victory over the world, and my actual pro- 
gress in the accomplishments of personal 



Christianity, bearing evidence upon myself 
that I have a real part and interest in these 
things? 

There can be no doubt as to the existence 
of such a class, — and under another text, 
there could be no difficulty in rinding out a 
spiritual application, by which to reach and 
to reprove them. But the matter suggested 
by the present text is, that if a minister of 
the present day should preach as the Apos- 
tles did before him, — if the great theme of 
his ministrations be Jesus Christ, and him 
crucified, — if the doctrine of the sermon be 
a faithful transcript of the doctrine of the 
New Testament, — there is one class, we 
have every warrant for believing, from 
whom the word will not return unto him 
void, — and there is another class who will 
be the willing hearers, but not the obe- 
dient doers of the word : but there is still a 
third class, made up of men of cultivated 
literature, and men of polished and respec- 
table society, and men of a firm secular in- 
telligence in all the ordinary matters of bu- 
siness, who, at the same time, possessing 
no sympathies whatever with the true spirit 
and design of Christianity, are exceedingly 
shut up, in all the avenues both of their 
heart and understanding, against the pecu- 
liar teaching of the gospel. Like the hearers 
of Ezekiel, they feel an impression of mys- 
teriousness. There is a certain want of 
adjustment between the truth as it is in Je- 
sus, and the prevailing style of their con- 
ceptions. All their views of human life, 
and all the lessons they may have gathered 
from the school of civil or classical mo- 
rality, and all their preferences for what 
they count the clearness and the ration- 
ality of legal preaching, and all the pre- 
dilections they have gotten in its favour, 
from the most familiar analogies in human 
society, — all these, coupled with their utter 
blindness to the magnitude of that guilt 
which they have incurred under the judg- 
ment of a spiritual law, enter as so many 
elements of dislike in their hearts, towards 
the whole tone and character of the peculiar 
doctrines of Christianity. And they go to 
envelope the subject in such a shroud of 
mysticism to their eyes, that many of the 
preachers of the gospel are, by them, resist- 
ed on the same plea with the prophet of old, 
to whom his contemptuous countrymen 
meant to attach the ridicule and the igno- 
miny of a proverb, when they said, — he is 
a dealer in parables. 

We mistake the matter, if we think that 
the offence of the cross has yet ceased from 
the land. We mistake it, if we think that 
the persecution of contempt, a species of 
persecution more appalling to some minds 
than even direct and personal violence, is 
not still the appointed trial of all who would 
live godly, and of all who would expound 
zealously and honestly the doctrine of 



II.] 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



135 



Christ Jesus our Lord. We utterly mis- 
take it, if we think that Christianity is not 
even to this very hour the same very peculiar 
thing that it was in the days of the Apos- 
tles, — that it does not as much signalize 
and separate us from a world lying in wick- 
edness—that the reproach cast upon Paul, 
that he was mad, because he was an intrepid 
follower of Christ, is not still ready to be 
preferred against every faithful teacher, and 
every consistent disciple of the faith, — and 
that, under the terras of methodism, and 
fanaticism, and mysticism, there is not rea- 
dy to be discharged upon them from the 
thousand batteries of a hostile and unbe- 
lieving world, as abundant a shower of in- 
vective and contumely as in the first ages. 

II. Now, if there be any hearers present 
who feel that we have spoken to them, 
when we spoke of the resistance which is 
held out against peculiar Christianity, on 
the ground of that mysteriousness in which 
it appears to be concealed from all ordinary 
discernment, — we should like to take our 
leave of them at present with two observa- 
tions. We ask them, in the first place, if 
they have ever, to the satisfaction of their 
own minds, disproved the Bible, — and if 
not, we ask them how they can sit at ease, 
should all the mysteriousness which they 
charge upon Evangelical truth, and by 
which they would attempt to justify their 
contempt for it, be found to attach to the 
very language, and to the very doctrine 
of God's own communication 1 What if it 
be indeed the truth of God ? What if it be 
the very language of the offended lawgiver? 
What if they be the only overtures of re- 
conciliation, upon the acceptance of which 
a sinner can come nigh unto him ? Now he 
actually does say that no man cometh unto 
the Father but by the Son, — and that his 
is the only name given under heaven 
whereby men can be saved, — and that he 
will be magnified only in the appointed 
Mediator, — and that Christ is all in all, — 
and that there is no other foundation on 
which man can lay, and that he who be- 
lieveth on him shall not be confounded. 

He further speaks of our personal prepa- 
ration for heaven — and here, too, may his 
utterance sound mysteriously in your hear- 
ing, as he tells that without holiness no man 
can see God, — and that we are without 
strength while we are without the Spirit to 
make us holy— and that unless a man be 
born again he shall not enter into the king- 
dom of God, — and that he should wrestle 
in prayer for the washing of regeneration 
— and that he should watch for the Holy 
Ghost with all perseverance, — and that he 
should aspire at being perfect through 
Christ strengthening him — and that he 
should, under the operation of those great 
provisions which are set up in the New 
Testament for creating us anew unto good 



works, conform himself unto that doctrine 
of grace by which he is brought to deny un- 
godliness and worldly lusts, and to live so- 
berly, righteously, and godly in the present 
evil world. We again ask them, if all this 
be offensive to their taste, and utterly re- 
volting to their habits and inclinations, and 
if they turn with disgust from the bitter- 
ness of such an application, and can behold 
no strength to constrain them in any such 
arguments, and no eloquence to admire in 
them. With what discernment truly is 
your case taken up in this very Bible, 
whose phraseology and whose doctrine are 
so unpalatable to you, when it tells us of 
the preaching of the cross being foolish- 
ness, — but remember that it says it is fool- 
ishness to those who perish : when it tells 
of the natural man not receiving of the 
things of the Spirit, — but remember that it 
says, if ye have not the Spirit of God, ye 
are none of his ; when it tells of the gospel 
being hid, — but hid to them who are lost : 
"In whom the God of this world hath 
blinded the minds of those which believe 
not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of 
Christ, who is the image of God, should 
shine unto them." 

Secondly, let us assure the men, who at 
this moment bid the stoutest defiance to the 
message of the gospel — the men whose na- 
tural taste appears to offer an invincible 
barrier against the reception of its truths, 
the men who, upon the plea of mysterious- 
ness, or the plea of fanaticism, or the plea 
of excessive and unintelligible peculiarity, 
are most ready to repudiate the whole style 
and doctrine of the New Testament, — let us 
assure them that the time may yet come, 
when they shall render to this very gospel 
the most striking of all acknowledgments, 
even by sending to the door of its most 
faithful ministers, and humbly craving 
from them their explanations and their 
prayers. It indeed offers an affecting con- 
trast to all the glory of earthly prospects, 
and to all the vigour of confident and re- 
joicing health, and to all the activity and 
enterprize of business, when the man who 
made the world his theatre, and felt his 
mountain to stand strong on the fleeting 
foundation of its enjoyments and its con 
cerns, — when he comes to be bowed down 
with infirmity, or receives from the trouble 
within, the solemn intimation that death is 
now looking to him in good earnest : When 
such a man takes him to the bed of sick- 
ness, and he knows it to be a sickness unto 
death, — when, under all the weight of 
breathlessness and pain, he listens to the 
man of God, as he points the way that 
leadeth to eternity, — what, I would ask, is 
the kind of gospel that is most fitted to 
charm the sense of guilt and the anticipa- 
tions of vengeance away from him ? Sure 
we are, that we never in these affecting 



138 



DEPRAVITY OF 



HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



circumstances — through which you have all 
to pass — we never saw the man who could 
maintain a stability, and a hope, from the 
sense of his own righteousness ; but who, 
if leaning on the righteousness of Christ, 
could mix a peace and an elevation with 
his severest agonies. We never saw the 
expiring mortal who could look with an un- 
daunted eye on God as his lawgiver ; but 
often has all its languor been lighted up 
with joy at the name of Christ as his Sa- 
viour. We never saw the dying acquaint- 
ance, who upon the retrospect of his virtues 
and of his doings, could prop the tranquilli- 
ty of his spirit on the expectation of a legal 
reward. O no ! this is not the element 
which sustains the tranquillity of death- 
beds. It is the hope of forgiveness. It is a 
believing sense of the efficacy of the atone- 
ment. It is the prayer of faith, offered up 
in the name of him who is the captain of 
all our salvation. It is a dependence on that 
power which can alone impart a meetness 
for the inheritance of the saints, and present 
the spirit holy, and unreproveable, and un- 
blamable, in the sight of God, 

Now, what w r e have to urge is, that if these 
be the topics, which, on the last half hour 
of your life, are the only ones that will 
possess, in. your judgment, any value or 



substantial importance, why put them away 
from you now ? You will recur to them 
then; and for what? that you may get the 
forgiveness of your sins. But there is a 
something else you must get, ere you can 
obtain an entrance into peace or glory. 
You must get the renovation of that nature, 
which is so deeply tainted at this moment 
with the guilt of ingratitude and forgetful- 
ness towards God. This must be gone 
through ere you die; and say if a change so 
mighty should be wantonly postponed to 
the hour of dying ? — when all your refusals 
of the gospel have hardened and darkened 
the mind against it ; when a demonstration 
of the Spirit then, is surely not to be counted 
on, as the return that you will experience for 
resisting all his intimations now; when the 
effects of the alienation of a whole life, both 
in extinguishing the light of your con- 
science, and in riveting your distaste for 
holiness, will be accumulated into such a 
barrier in the way of your return to God, 
as stamps upon death-bed conversions, a 
grievous unlikelihood, and should give 
an imperious force to the call of " To- 
day," — "while it is called to-day, harden 
not your hearts, seeing that now is your 
accepted time, and now is your day of 
salvation." 



SERMON III. 

The Preparation necessary for Understanding the Mysteries of the Gospel. 

" He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of 
heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more 
abundance; but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that he hath." — Matthew xiii. 11, 12. 



It is of importance to mark the principle 
of distribution on which it is given to some 
to know the mysteries of the kingdom of 
heaven, and it is not given to others. Both 
may at the outset be equally destitute of a 
clear understanding of these mysteries. But 
the former may have what the latter have 
not. With the former there may be a de- 
sire for explanation ; with the latter there 
may be no such desire. The former may, 
in the earnest prosecution of this desire, be 
praying earnestly, and reading diligently, 
and striving laboriously, to do all that they 
know to be the will of God. With the latter, 
there may be neither the habit of prayer, 
nor the habit of inquiry, nor the habit of 
obedience. To the one class will be given 
what they have not. From the other class 
what they have shall be taken away. We 
have already attempted to excite in the latter 
class a respectful attention to the truths of 
the gospel, and shall now confine ourselves 
chiefly to the object of encouraging and di- 



recting those who feel the mysteriousness of 
these truths, and long for light to arise in 
the midst of it ; — shall address ourselves to 
those who have an honest anxiety after 
that truth, which is unto us salvation, but 
find the way to it beset with many doubts 
and many perplexities, — to those who are 
impressed with a general conviction on 
the side of Scripture, but in whose eyes a 
darkness impenetrable still broods over its 
pages, — to those who are haunted by a 
sense of the imperious necessity of religion, 
and at the same time cannot escape from 
the impression, that if it is any where to be 
found, it is to be found within the records 
of the Old and New Testament, but from 
whose heart in the reading of these records 
the veil still remains untaken away. 

In the further prosecution of this dis- 
course, let us attempt, in the first place, to 
explain what it is that we ought to have, in 
order to attain an understanding of the mys- 
teries of the gospel; and, in the second 



III.J 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



137 



place, how it is that in many cases these 
mysteries are evolved upon the mind in a 
clear and convincing manifestation. 

I. First, then, we ought to have an honest 
desire after light ; and if we have this desire, 
it will not remain unproductive. There is 
a connexion repeatedly announced to us in 
Scripture between desire upon this subject, 
and its accomplishment. He that wiUeth 
to do the will of God shall know of my 
doctrine. He who hungereth and thirsteth 
shall be filled. He who lacketh wisdom and 
is desirous of obtaining it, let him vent his 
desire in prayer, — and if it be the prayer of 
confidence in God, his desire shall be given 
him. There are thousands to whom the 
Bible is a sealed book, and who are satis- 
fied that it should remain so, who share in 
the impetuous contempt of the Pharisees 
against a doctrine to which they are alto- 
gether blind, who have no understanding of 
the matter, and no wish that it should be 
otherwise, — and unto them - it will not be 
given to know the mysteries of the king- 
dom of heaven. They have not, and from 
them therefore shall be taken away even 
that which they have. There are others, 
again, who have an ardent and unquencha- 
ble thirst after the mysteries of the gospel ; 
who, like the prophet in trie apocalypse, 
weep much because the book is not opened 
to them ; Avho complain of darkness, like 
the Apostles of old when they expostulated 
with their Teacher because he spoke in 
parables, and, like them, who go to him with 
their requests for an explanation. These 
shall find that what they cannot do for 
themselves, the Lion of the tribe of Judah 
will do for them. He will prevail to open 
the book, and to loose the seals thereof. 
There is something they already have, 
even an honest wish to be illuminated, and 
to this more will be given. They are awake 
to the disirableness, they are awake to the 
necessity of a revelation, which they have 
not yet gotten, — and to them belongs the 
promise of, Awake, O sinner, and Christ 
shall give thee light. 

Secondly, We ought to have a habit of 
prayer conjoined with a habit of inquiry; 
and to this more will be given. We have 
already adverted to the circumstance, that 
it is in the Bible, and not out of the Bible, 
where this light is to be met with. It is by 
the Spirit of God, shining upon the word 
of God, that his truth is reflected with 
clearness upon the soul. It is by his opera- 
tion that the characters of this book are 
made to stand as visibly out to the eye of 
the understanding, as they do to the eye of 
the body ; and therefore it is evident that it 
is not in the act of looking away from the 
written revelation, but in the act of looking 
towards it, that the wished-for illumination 
will at length come into the mind of an 
inquirer. Let your present condition then 



■ be that of a darkness as helpless and as 
I unattainable as can possibly be imagined, 
there still remains an obvious and practica- 
ble direction which you can be doing with 
in the mean time. You can persevere in 
the exercise of reading your Bible. There 
you are at the place of meeting etween 
the Spirit of God and your own spirit. 
You may have to wait, as if at the pool of 
Siloam ; but the many calls of the Bible to 
wait upon God, to wait upon him with pa- 
tience, to wait and to be of good courage, all 
prove that this waiting is a frequent and 
-a familiar part of that process by which a 
sinner finds his way out of darkness into 
the marvellous light of the gospel. 

And we have also adverted already, 
though in a very general way, to the dif- 
ference in point of result between the active 
inquiries of a man who looks forward to 
the acquisition of saving truth as the natural 
and necessary termination of his inquiries, 
and of a man who mingles with every per- 
sonal attempt after this object, the exercise 
of prayer, and a reverential sense of his 
dependence on God. The latter is just as 
active, and just as inquisitive as the former. 
The difference between them does not lie 
in the one putting forth diligence without 
a feeling of dependence, and the other feel- 
ing dependence, without a putting forth of 
diligence. He who is in the right path to- 
wards the attainment of light, combines 
both these properties. 

It is through the avenues of a desirous 
heart and of an exercised understanding, 
and of sustained attention, and of faculties 
in quest of truth, and labouring after the 
possession of it, that God sends into the 
mind his promised manifestations. All this 
exercise on the one hand, without such an 
acknowledgement of him as leads to prayer, 
will be productive of nothing in the way 
of spiritual discernment. And prayer, with- 
out this exercise, is the mere form and 
mockery of an acknowledgement. He who 
calls upon us to hearken diligently, when 
he addresses us by a living voice, does in 
effect call upon us to read and to ponder 
diligently when he addresses us by a writ- 
ten message. To ask truth of God, while 
we neglect to do for this object what he 
bids us, is in fact not to recognize God, but 
to insult him. It is to hold out the appear- 
ance of presenting ourselves before him, 
while we are not doing it at the place of 
meeting, which he has assigned for us. It 
is to address an imaginary Being, whom 
we have invested with a character of our 
own conception, and not the Being who 
bids us search his Scriptures, and incline 
unto his testimonies, and stir ourselves up 
that we may lay hold of him. Such prayer 
is utterance, and nothing more. It wants 
all the substantial characters of prayer. It 
may amount to the seeking of those who 



138 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



shall not be able to enter the strait gate. It 
falls short of the striving of those who take 
the kingdom of heaven by force, and of 
whom that kingdom suffereth violence. 

He who without prayer looks confidently 
forward to success as the fruit of his own 
investigations, is not walking humbly with 
God. If he were humble he would pray. 
But whether is he the more humble, who 
joins with a habit of prayer all those ac- 
companying circumstances which God hath 
prescribed, or he who, in neglect of these 
circumstances, ventures himself into his 
presence in the language of supplication? 
There may be the show of humility in con- 
fiding the whole cause of our spiritual and 
saving illumination to the habit of praying 
for it to God. But if God himself tells us, 
that we must read, and seek, and meditate, 
then it is no longer humility to keep by the 
solitary exercise of praying. It is, in fact, 
keeping pertinaciously by our own way, 
heedless of his will and his way altogether. 
It is approaching God in the pride of our 
own understanding. It is detaching from 
the whole work of seeing after him some 
of those component parts which he himself 
hath recommended. In the very act of 
making prayer stand singly out as alone 
instrument of success, we are in fact draw- 
ing the life and the spirit out of prayer 
itself; and causing it to wither into a thing 
of no power and no significancy in the sight 
of God. It is not the prayer of acknow- 
ledgement, unless it comes from him who 
acknowledges the will of God in other things 
as well as in prayer. It is not the prayer 
of submission unless it comes from the heart 
of a man who manifests a principle of sub- 
mission in all things. 

Thirdly, We ought to do all that we 
know to be God's will ; and to this habit of 
humble earnest desirous reformation, more 
will be given. 

We trust that what has been said will 
prepare you for the reception of another 
advice besides that of reading or praying 
for the attainment of that manifestation 
which you are in quest of, — and that is, 
doing. There is an alarm raised in many 
a heart at the very suggestion of doing for 
an inquirer, lest he should be misled as to 
the ground of his justification ; lest among 
the multitude or the activity of his works, 
he should miss the truth, that a man is ac- 
cepted, not through the works of the law, 
but by faith in Jesus Christ ; lest by every 
one performance of duty, he should just be 
adding another stone to the fabric of a de- 
lusive confidence, and presumptuously try 
to force his own way to heaven, without 
the recognition of the gospel or any of its 
peculiarities. Now, doing stands precisely 
in the same relation to prayer that reading 
does. Without the one or the other it is 
the prayer either of presumption or^hypo- 



crisy. If he both read and pray, it is far 
more likely that he will be brought unto the 
condition of a man being justified through 
faith in Christ, than that he will rest his 
hopes before God in the mere exercise of 
reading. If he both do and pray, it is far 
more likely that he will come to be esta- 
blished in the righteousness of Christ, as 
the foundation of all his trust, than that he 
will rest upon his own righteousness. For 
a man to give up sin at the outset, is just to 
do what God wills him at the outset. For a 
man at the commencement of his inquiries, 
to be strenuous in the relinquishment of all 
that he knows to be evil, is just to enter on 
the path of approach towards Christ, in the 
very way that Christ desires him. He who 
cometh unto me must forsake all. For a 
man to put forth an immediate hand to the 
doing of the commandments, while he is 
groping his way towards a firm basis on 
which he might rear his security before 
God, is not to deviate or diverge from the 
Saviour. He may do it with an eye of most 
intense earnestness towards the Saviour, — 
and while the artificial interpreter of Christ's 
doctrine holds him to be wrong, Christ him- 
self may recognize him to be one of those 
who keep his sayings, and to whom there- 
fore he stands pledged to manifest himself. 
The man in fact by strenuously doing, is 
just the more significantly and the more 
energetically praying. He is adding one in- 
gredient to the business of seeking, without 
which the other ingredient would be in 
God's sight an abomination. He is strug- 
gling against all regard to iniquity in his 
heart, seeing that if he have this regard God 
will not hear him. To say, that it is danger- 
ous to tell a man in these circumstances to 
do, lest he rest in his doings, and fall short 
of the Saviour, is to say, that it would be 
dangerous to place a man on the road to his 
wished-for home, lest, when he has got upon 
the road, he should stand still and be satisfied. 
The more, in fact, that the man's conscience 
is exercised and enlightened (and w.hat more 
fitted than wilful sin to deafen the voice of 
conscience altogether?) the less will it let 
him alone, and the more will it urge him 
onward to that righteousness which is the 
only one commensurate to God's law, and 
in which alone the holy and inflexible God 
can look upon him with complacency. Let 
him humbly betake himself, then, to the 
prescribed path of reading, and prayer, and 
obvious reformation, — and let us see if there 
do not evolve upon his mind, in the prosecu- 
tion of it, the worthlessness of all that man 
can do for his meritorious acceptance with 
the Lawgiver— and the deep ungodliness 
of character which adheres to him— and 
the suitableness of Christ's atonement to all 
his felt necessities, and all his moral aspi- 
rations—and the need in which he stands 
of a regenerating influence, to make him a 



m.J 



DEPRAVITY OF 



HUMAN NATURE. 



139 



willing and a spiritual subject of God. Let 
us see whether, though the light which he 
at length receives be marvellous, the way is 
not plain which leads to it ; and whether 
though nature be compassed about with a 
darkness which no power of nature can 
dissipate, — there is not a clear and obvious 
procedure, by the steps of which the most 
alienated of her children may be carried on- 
wards to all the manifestation of the king- 
dom of grace, and to the discernment of all 
its mysteries. 

Though to the natural eye, then, the doc- 
trine of Christ be not plain, the way is plain 
by which we arrive at it. Though, ere we 
see the things of Christ, the Spirit must 
take of them and show them unto us, — yet 
this Spirit deals out such admonitions to all, 
that, if we follow them, he will not cease to 
enlarge, and to extend his teaching, till we 
have obtained a saving illumination. He is 
given to those who obey him. He abandons 
those who resist him. When conscience 
tells us to read, and to pray, and to reform, 
it is he who is prompting this faculty. It is 
he who is sending through this organ, the 
whispers of his own voice to the ear of the 
inner man. If we go along with the move- 
ment, he will follow it up by other move- 
ments. He will visit him who is the willing 
subject of his first influences by higher de- 
monstrations. He will carry forward his 
own work in the heart of that man, who, 
while acting upon the suggestions of his 
own moral sense, is in fact acting in con- 
formity to the warnings of this kind and 
faithful monitor. So that the Holy Spirit 
will connect his very first impulses on the 
mind of that inquirer, who, under the reign 
of earnestness, has set himself to read his 
Bible, and to knock with importunity at the 
door of heaven, and to forsake the evil of 
his ways, and to turn him to the practice 
of all that he knows to be right, — the Spirit 
will connect these incipient measures of a 
seeker after Zion, with the acquirement of 
•wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of 
€hrist. 

Let it not be said, then, that because the 
doctrine of Christ is shrouded m mystery 
to the general eye of the world, it is such a 
mystery as renders it inaccessible to the 
men of the world. Even to them does the 
trumpet of invitation blow a certain sound. 
They may not yet see the arcana of the 
temple, but they may see the road which 
leads to the temple. If they are never to 
obtain admission there, it is not because 
they cannot, but because they will not, 
come to it. "Ye will not come to me," 
says the Saviour, " that ye might have life," 
Reading, and prayer, and reformation, these 
are all obvious things ; and it is the neglect 
of these obvious things which involves them 
in the guilt and the ruin of those who ne- 
glect the great salvation. This salvation is 



to be found of those who seek after it. The 
knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ, 
which is life everlasting, is a knowledge 
open and acquirable to all. And, on the 
day of judgment, there will not be found a 
single instance of a man condemned be- 
cause of unbelief, who sought to the utter- 
most of his opportunities ; and evinced the 
earnestness of his desire after peace with 
God, by doing all that he might have done, 
and by being all that he might have been. 

Be assured, then, that it will be for want 
of seeking, if you do not find. It will 
be for want of learning, if you are not 
taught. It will be for want of obedience 
to the movements of your own conscience, 
if the Holy Ghost, who prompts and who 
stimulates the conscience to all its move- 
ments, be not poured upon you, in one large 
and convincing manifestation. It may still 
be the day of small things with you — a day 
despised by the accomplished adepts of a 
systematic and articled theology. But God 
will not despise it. He will not leave your 
longings for ever unsatisfied. He will not 
keep you standing always at the threshold 
of vain desires and abortive endeavours. 
That faith, which is the gift of God, you 
have already attained, in a degree, if you 
have obtained a general conviction of the 
importance and the reality of the whole 
matter. He will increase that faith. Act 
up to the light that you have gotten by 
reading earnestly, and praying importu- 
nately, and striving laboriously, — and to 
you more will be given. You will at length 
obtain a clear and satisfying impression 
of the things of God, and the things of 
salvation. Christ will be recognised in all 
his power and in all his preciousness. You 
will know what it is to be established upon 
him. The natural legality of your hearts 
will give way to the pure doctrine of accep- 
tance with God, through faith in the blood 
of a crucified Saviour. The sanctifying in- 
fluence of such a faith will not merely be 
talked of in word, but be experienced in 
power; and you will evince that you are 
God's workmanship in Christ Jesus, by 
your abounding in all those fruits of righ- 
teousness which are through him, to the 
praise and glory of the Father. 

II. We shall now attempt to explain, 
how it is that the mysteries of the gospel 
are, in many cases, evolved' upon the 
mind in a clear and convincing manifesta- 
tion. 

And here let it be distinctly understood, 
that the way in many cases may be very 
far from the way in all cases. The expe- 
rience of converts is exceedingly various, — 
nor do we know a more frequent, and at 
the same time a more groundless cause of 
anxiety, than that by which the mind of an 
inquirer is often harassed, when he at- 
tempts to realize the very process by which 



140 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



another has been called cut of darkness to 
the marvellous light of the gospel. 

R eferring, then, to those grounds of mys- 
teriousness which we have already specified 
in a former discourse, — God may so mani- 
fest himself to the mind of an inquirer, as 
to convince him, that all those analogies of 
common life which are taken from the re- 
lation of a servant to his master, or of a 
son to his father, or of a subject to his sove- 
reign, utterly fail in the case of man, as he 
Is by nature, in relation to his God. A ser- 
vant may discharge all his obligations; a 
son may acquit himself of all his duties, or 
may, with his occasional failures, and his 
occasional chastisements, still keep his 
place in the instinctive affection of his pa- 
rents ; and a subject may persevere in un- 
seduced loyalty to the earthly government 
under which he lives. But the glaring and 
the demonstrable fact with regard to man, 
viewed as a creature, is, that the habit of 
his heart is one continued habit of dislike 
and resistance to the Creator who gave him 
birth. 

The earthly master may have all those 
services rendered to which he has a right, 
and so be satisfied. The earthly father may 
have all the devotedness, and all the attach- 
ment from his family, which he can desire, 
and so be satisfied. The earthly sovereign 
may have all that allegiance from a loyal 
subject, who pays his taxes, and never 
transgresses his laws, which he expects or 
cares for, and so be satisfied. But go up- 
ward from them to the God who made us, — 
to the God who keeps us, — to the God in 
whom we live, and move, and have our 
being, — to the God whose care and whose 
presence are ever surrounding us, who, 
from morning to night, and from night 
to morning, watches over us, and tends us 
while we sleep, and guides us in our waking 
moments, and follows us to the business of 
the world, and brings us back in safety to 
our homes, and never for a single instant 
of time withdraws from us the superintend- 
ence of an eye that never slumbers, and of 
a hand that is never weary. Now, all we 
require is a fair estimate of the claims of 
such a God. Does he ask too much, when 
he asks the affections of a heart that receives 
its every beat, and its every movement, 
from the impulse of his power ? Does he 
ask too much, when he asks the devoted- 
ness of a life, which owes its every hour 
and its every moment to him, whose right 
hand preserves us continually? Has he 
no right to complain, when he knocks at the 
door of our hearts, and trying to possess 
himself of the love and the confidence of 
his own creatures, he finds that all their 
thoughts, and all their pursuits, and all 
likings, are utterly away from him? Is 
there no truth, and no justice in the charge 
which he prefers against us, — when, sur- 



rounded as we are by the gifts of nature 
and of providence, all of which are his, the 
giver is meanwhile forgotten, and, amid the 
enjoyments of his bounty, we live without 
him in the world. If it indeed be true, that 
it is his sun which lights us on our path, and 
his earth on which we tread so firmly, and 
his air which circulates a freshness around 
our dwellings, and his rain which produces 
all the luxuriance that is spread around us, 
and drops upon every field the smiling pro- 
mise of abundance for all the wants of his 
dependent children, — if all this be true, can 
it at the same time be right, that this all- 
providing God should have so little a place 
in our remembrance ? that the whole man 
should be otherwise engaged than with a 
sense of him, and the habitual exercise of 
acknowledgment to him ? that in fact the 
full play of his regards should be expended 
on the things which are formed, and through 
the whole system of his conduct and his 
affairs, there should be so utter a neglect of 
him who formed them ? Surely if this be 
the true description of man, and the cha- 
racter of his heart in reference to God, then 
it is a case of too peculiar a nature to be 
illustrated by any of the analogies of human 
society. It must be taken up on its own 
grounds; and should the injured and of- 
fended Lawgiver offer to make it the subject 
of any communication, it is our part hum- 
bly to listen and implicitly to follow it. 

And here it is granted, that amongst the 
men who are utter strangers to this com- 
munication, you meet with the better and 
the worse; and that there is an obvious 
line of distinction which marks off the base 
and the worthless amongst them, from those 
of them who are the valuable and the ac- 
complished members of society. And yet 
do we aver that one may step over that line 
and not be nearer than he was to God, — 
that, between the men on either side of it, 
and Him who created them, there lies an 
untrodden gulf of separation, — that, with 
all the justice which, rules their transac- 
tions, and all the honour which animates 
their bosoms, and all the compassion which 
warms their hearts, ^and streams forth 
either in tears of pity, or in acts of kind- 
ness, upon the miserable, — with all these 
virtues which they do have, and which 
serve both to bless and to adorn the condi- 
tion of humanity, there is one virtue, which, 
prior to the reception and the influence of 
the gospel of Christ, they most assuredly 
do not have, — they are utterly devoid of 
godliness, They have.no desire, and no 
inclination towards God. There may be 
the dread of him, and the occasional re- 
membrance of him ; but there is no affec- 
tion for him. 

This is the charge which we carry round 
amongst all the sons and daughters of 
Adam, who have not submitted themselves 



III.J 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



141 



to the only name that is given under hea- 
ven whereby men can be saved. We are 
not denying that the persons of some of 
them are dignified by the more respectable 
attributes of character ; and that, from the 
persons of others of them, there are beau- 
teously reflected the more amiable and en- 
dearing attributes of character. But we 
affirm, that with all these random varieties 
of moral exhibition which are to be found — 
the principle of loyalty to God has lost 
the hold of a presiding influence over all 
the children of our degraded and undone 
nature. We ask you to collect all the scat- 
tered remnants of what is great, and of 
what is graceful in accomplishments that 
may have survived the fall of our first pa- 
rents ; and we pronounce, of the whole as- 
semblage, that they go not to alleviate, by 
one iota, the burden of that controversy 
which lies between God and their posterity, 
— that throughout all the ranks and diver- 
sities of character which prevail in the 
world, there is one pervading affection of 
enmity to him ; that the man of talents for- 
gets that he has nothing which he did not 
receive, and so, courting by some lofty en- 
terprize of mind, the gaze of this world's 
admiration, he renounces his God, and 
makes an idol of his fame, — that the man 
of ambition feels not how subordinate he is 
to the might and the majesty of his Cre- 
ator, but turning away all his reverence 
from him, falls down to the idol of power, — 
that the man of avarice withdraws all his 
trust from the living God, and, embarking 
all his desire in the pursuit of riches, and 
all his security in the possession of them, 
he makes an idol of wealth, — that, descend- 
ing from these to the average and the every- 
day members of our world's population, we 
see each walking after the counsel of his 
own heart, and in the sight of his own eyes, 
with every wish directed to the objects of 
time, and every hope bounded by its anti- 
cipations : and, amid all the love they bear 
to their families, and all the diligence they 
give to their business, and all the homage 
of praise and attachment they obtain from 
their friends, are they so surrounded by the 
influences of what is seen and what is sen- 
sible, that the invisible God is scarcely ever 
nought of, and his character not at all 
dwelt on with delight, and his will never 
admitted to an habitual and a practical as- 
cendency over their conduct, so as to make 
it true of all, and of every one of us, that 
there is none who understandeth, and none 
who seeketh after God. 

Now, if a man do not see this case made 
out against himself in all its enormity, he 
will feel that the man who talks of it, and 
who proposes the gospel application to it, 
talketh mysteriously. If the Spirit have 
not convinced him of sin, and he have 
not learned to submit his character to 



the lofty standard of a law which offers 
to subordinate to the will of God, not 
merely the whole habit of his outward his- 
tory, but also the whole habit of his inward 
affections, both the disease and the remedy 
are alike unknown to him. His character 
may be fair and respectable in the eyes of 
men; but it will not carry upon it one 
feature of that spirituality and holiness, and 
relish for those exercises that have God for 
their immediate object, which assimilate 
men to angels, and make them meet for 
the joys of eternity. His morality will be 
the morality of life, and his virtues will be 
the virtues of the world ; and all the mys- 
tery of a parable, or of a dark saying will 
appear to hang over the terms and the ex- 
planations of that gospel, against the light of 
whkJi the god of this world blindeth the 
minW*)f those who believe not. 

LeKis therefore reflect that the principle 
on which the peculiarities of the gospel look 
so mysterious, is just the feeling which na- 
ture has of its own sufficiency; and, that 
you may renounce this delusive feeling 
altogether, we ask you to think, how totally 
destitute you are of that whic God chiefly 
requires of you. He requires your heart, and 
we venture to say of every man amongst you, 
who has heretofore lived in neglect of the 
great salvation, that his heart, with all its ob- 
jects and affections, is away from God, — that 
it is not a sense of obligation to him which 
forms the habitual and the presiding in- 
fluence of its movements, — that therefore 
every day and every hour of your history 
in the world, accumulates upon you the 
guilt of a disobedience of a far deeper and 
more offensive character than even the 
disobedience of your more notorious and 
external violations. There is ever with 
you, lying folded in the recesses of your 
bosom, and pervading the whole system 
botlrof your desires and your doings, that 
which gives to sin all its turpitude, and all 
its moral hideonsness in the sight of God. 
There is a rooted preference of the creature 
to the Creator. There is a full desire 
after the gift, and a listless ingratitude to- 
wards the giver. There is an utter devoted- 
ness, in one shape or other, to the world 
that is to be burnt up, — and an utter forget- 
fulness, amid all your forms, and all your 
decencies, of him who endureth for ever. 
There is that universal attribute of the car- 
nal mind — enmity against God; and we 
affirm that, with this distaste in your hearts 
towards him, you, on every principle of a 
spiritual and intelligent morality, are as 
chargeable with rebellion against your 
Maker, as if some apostate angel had been 
your champion, and you warred with God, 
under the waving standards of defiance. 
It was to clear away the guilt of this mon- 
strous iniquity that Christ died. It was to 
make it possible for God, with his truth 



142 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



unviolated, and his holiness untarnished, 
and all the high attributes of his eternal and 
unchangeable nature unimpaired, to hold 
out forgiveness to the world, — that propi- 
tiation was made through the blood of his 
own son, even that God might be just, 
while the justifier of them who believe in 
Jesus. It is to make it possible for man to 
love the Being whom nature taught him to 
hate and to fear, that God now lifts, from 
his mercy-seat, a voice of the most beseech- 
ing tenderness, and smiles upon the world 
as God in Christ, reconciling the world unto 
himself, and not imputing unto them their 
trespasses. It was utterly to shift the moral 
constitution of our minds, — an achievement 
beyond any power of humanity, — that the 
Saviour, after he died and rose again, obtained 
the promise of the Father, even thatStairit, 
through whom alone the fixed and Epical 
disease of nature can be done away. And 
thus, by the ministration of the baptism of 
the Holy Ghost, does he undertake not only 
to improve but to change us, — not only to 
repair but to re-make us, — not only to 
amend our evil works, but to create us 



anew unto good works, that we may be the 
workmanship of God in Christ Jesus our 
Lord. These are the leading and essential 
peculiarities of the New Testament. This 
is the truth of Christ ; though to the gene- 
ral mind of the world it is the truth of 
Christ in a mystery. These are the para- 
bles which the commissioned messengers 
of grace are to deal out to the sinful children 
of Adam, — and dark as they may appear, 
or disgusting as they may sound in the ears 
of those who think that they are rich, and 
have need of nothing, they are the very ar- 
ticles upon which hope is made to beam 
on the heart of a converted sinner, — and 
peace is restored to him, — and acceptance 
with God is secured by the terms of an un- 
alterable covenant, — and the only effec- 
tive instruments of a vital and substantial 
reformation are provided ; so that he who 
before was dead in trespasses and sins is 
quickened together with Christ, and made 
alive unto God, and renewed again after 
his image, and enabled to make constant 
progress in all the graces of a holy and 
spiritual obedience. 



/ 



SERMON IV. 
An Estimate of the Morality that is without Godliness. 

"If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean : Yet shalt thou plunge me in the 
ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me. For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, 
and we should come together in judgment. Neither is there any day's-man betwixt us, that might lay his 
hand upon us both." — Job ix. 30 — 33. 



To the people of every Christian coun-l 
try the doctrine of a Mediator between God 
and man is familiarized by long possession ; 
though to many of them it be nothing more 
than the familiarity of a name recognized 
as a well-known sound by the ear, without 
sending one fruitful or substantial thought 
into the understanding. For, let it be ob- 
served, that the listless acquiescence of the 
mind in a doctrine, to the statement or to 
the explanation of which it has been long 
habituated, is a very different thing from 
the actual hold which the mind takes of the 
doctrine, — insomuch that it is very possible 
for a man to be a lover of orthodoxy, and 
to sit with complacency under its ministers, 
and to be revolted by the heresies of those 
who would either darken or deny any of 
its articles, — and, in a word, to be most te- 
nacious in his preference for that form of 
words to which he has been accustomed ; 
while to the meaning of the words them- 
selves, the whole man is in a state of entire 
dormancy ; and delighted though he really 
be by the utterance of the truth, exhibits 
not in his person, or in his history, one 



! evidence of that practical ascendency which 
Christian truth is sure to exert over the 
heart and the habits of every genuine be- 
liever. 

In the midst oi all that dimness, and all 
this indolence about the realities of salva- 
tion, it is refreshing to view the workings 
of a mind that is in earnest ; and of a mind 
too, which, instead of being mechanically 
carried forward in the track of a prescribed 
or authoritative orthodoxy, is prompted to 
all its aspirations by a deep feeling of guilt, 
and of necessity. Such we conceive to hav 
been the mind of Job, to whom the doc- 
trine of a Redeemer had not been explicitly 
unfolded, but who seems at times to have 
been favoured with a prophetic glimpse of 
him through the light of a dim and distant 
futurity. The state of his body, covered as 
it was with disease, makes him an object 
of sympathy. But there is a still deeper 
and more attractive sympathy excited by 
the state of his soul, labouring under the 
visitation of a hand that was too heavy for 
him; called out to combat with God, and 
struggling to maintain it ; at one time, 



it.J 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



143 



tempted to measure the justice of his cause 
with the righteousness of Heaven's dis- 
pensations ; "at another, closing his com- 
plaint with the murmurs of a despairing ac- 
quiescence ; and at length brought, through 
all the varieties of an exercised and agitated 
spirit, to submit himself to God, and to re- 
pent in dust and in ashes. 

There is a darkness in the book of Job. 
He, at one time, under the soreness of his 
calamity, gives way to impatience ; and. at 
another, he seems to recall the hasty utter- 
ance of his more distempered moments. 
He. in one place, fills his mouth with argu- 
ments ; and. in another, he appears willing 
to surrender them all, and to decline the 
unequal struggle of man contending with 
his Maker. ~ He is evidently oppressed 
throughout by a feeling of want without 
the full understanding of an adequate or an 
appropriate remedy. Now, it does give a 
higher sense of the value of this remedy, 
when we are made to witness the unsatis- 
fied longings of one who lived in a dark and 
early period of the world. — when we hear 
him* telling, as he does in these verses, 
where the soreness lies, and obscurely 
guessing at the ministration that is suited 
to it, — nor do we know a single passage of 
the Bible which carries home with greater 
effect the necessity of a Mediator, than that 
where Job, on his restless bed, is set before 
us. weaning himself in the hopeless task of 
arguing "with God, and calling for some 
day's-man betwixt them who might lay his 
hand upon them both. 

The afflictions which were heaped upon 
Tob made him doubt his acceptance with 
his Maker. This was the great burden of 
his complaint, and the recovery of this ac- 
ceptance was the theme of many a fruit- 
less and fatiguing speculation. We have 
one of these speculations in the verses 
which are now submitted to you ; and as 
they are four in number, so there is such a 
distinction in the subjects of them, that the 
passage naturally resolves itself into four 
separate topics of illustration. In the 30th 
verse, we have an expedient proposed by 
Job, for the pupose of obtaining the accept- 
ance which he longed after: "If I wash 
myself with snow water, and make my 
hands never so clean." In the 31st verse, 
we have the inefficacy of this expedient ; 

Yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and 
mine own clothes shall abhor me." In the 
32d verse, he gives the reason of this ineffi- 
cacy; For he is not man, as I am, that I 
should answer him, and we should come 
together in judgment/ 5 And in the 33d 
verse, he intimates to us the right expedient, 
under the form of complaining that he him- 
self has not the benefit of it : " Neither is 
there any day : s-man betwixt us, that might 
lay his hand upon us both." 

I. It is not to be wondered at, that even 



a mistaken efficacy should be ascribed to 
snow water, in the country of Job's resi- 
dence, where snow, if ever it fell at all, 
must have fallen rarely, at very extraordi- 
• nary seasons, and in the more elevated parts 
! of his neighbourhood. This rarity, added 
j to its unsullied whiteness, might have given 
| currency to an idea of its efficacy as a puri- 
fier, beyond what actually belonged to it. 
Certain it is, too, that snow water, like 
j water deposited from the atmosphere, in 
any other form, does not possess that hard- 
ness which is often to be met with in spring 
I water. But however this be, and whether 
' the popular notion of the purifying virtues 
I of snow water, taken up by Job, be well 
founded or not, we have here an expedient 
' suggested for making the hands clean, and 
j the man pure and acceptable in the sight of 
I God, — a method proposed within the reach 
j of man. and which man can perform, for 
i making himself an object of complacency 
to his Maker; a method, too, which is quite 
effectual for beautifying all that meets the 
discernment of the outward eye, and which 
is here set before us as connected with the 
object of gaining the eye of that high and 
heavenly Witness, with whom we have to 
do. This is what we understand to be re- 
presented by washing with snow water. 
It comprehends all that man can do for 
washing himself, and for making himself 
I clean in the sight of God. Job complains 
of the fruitlessness of this expedient, and 
perhaps mingles with his complaints the 
reproaches of a spirit that was not yet sub- 
dued to entire acquiescence in the righte- 
ousness of God. Let us try to examine 
this matter, and, if possible, ascertain whe- 
ther man is able, on the utmost stretch of 
his powers and of his performances, to make 
himself an object of approbation to his 
Judge. 

Without entering into the metaphysical 
controversy about the extent or the freedom 
of human agency, let it be observed, that 
there is a plain and a popular understanding 
on the subject of what man can do and of 
what he cannot do. We wish to proceed 
on this understanding for the present, and 
to illustrate it by a few examples. Should 
! it be asked, if a man can keep his hands 
from stealing, it would be the unhesitating 
answer of almost every one that he can do 
it, — and if he can keep his tongue from 
lying, that he can do it, — and if he can con- 
strain his feet to carry him every Sabbath 
to the house of God, that he can do this 
also. — and if he can tithe his income, or 
even reducing himself to the necessaries of 
life, make over the mighty sacrifice of all 
the remainder to the poor, that it is certainly 
possible for him to do it, — and if he can 
keep a guard upon his lips, so that not one 
whisper of malignity shall escape from 
them, that he can also prescribe this task to 



144 



DEPRAVITY OF H 



UMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



himself, and is able to perform it, — and if 
he can read much of his Bible, and utter 
many prayers in private, that he can do it, 
— and if he can assemble his family on the 
morning and the evening of every day, and 
go through the worship of God along with 
them, that all this he can do, — that all this 
lies within the compass of human agency. 

Let any one man do, then, what all men 
think it possible for him to do, and he will 
wear upon his person the visible exhibition 
of much to recommend him to the favoura- 
ble judgment of his fellows. He will be 
guilty of no one transgression against the 
peace and order of society. He will be cor- 
rect, and regular, and completely inoffen- 
sive. He will contribute many a deed of 
positive beneficence to the welfare of those 
around him ; and may even, on the strength 
of his many decencies, and many observa- 
tions, hold out an aspect of religiousness to 
the general eye of the world. There will 
be a wide and most palpable distinction of 
character between him, and those who, at 
large from the principle of self-control, re- 
sign themselves to the impulse of every 
present temptation; and are either intem- 
perate, or ^dishonest, or negligent of ordi- 
nances, just as habit, or the urgency of their 
feelings and their circumstances, may hap- 
pen to have obtained the ascendancy over 
them. Those do not what they might, and 
what, in common estimation, they can do ; 
and it is just because the man has put forth 
all his strenuousness to the task of accom- 
plishing all that he is able for, that he looks 
so much more seemly than those who are 
beside him, and holds out a far more en- 
gaging display of what is moral and praise- 
worthy to all his acquaintances. 

II. I will not be able to convince you 
how superficial the reformation of all these 
doings %, without passing on to the 31st 
verse, and proving, that in the pure eye of 
God the man who has made the most co- 
pious application in his power of snow- 
water to the visible conduct, may still be an 
object of abhorrence ; and that if God enter 
into judgment with him, he will make him 
appear as one plunged in the ditch, his 
righteousness as filthy rags, and himself as 
an unclean thing. There are a thousand 
things which, in popular and understood 
language, man can do. It is quite the general 
sentiment, that he can abstain from stealing, 
and lying, and calumny, — that he can give 
of his substance to the poor, and attend 
church, and pray, and read his Bible, and 
keep up the worship of God in his family. 
But, as an instance of distinction between 
what he can do, and what he cannot do, let 
us make the undoubted assertion, that- he 
can eat wormwood, and just put the ques- 
tion, if he can also relish wormwood. That 
is a different affair. I may command the 
performance; but have no such command 



over my organs of sense, as to command a 
liking, or a taste for the performance. The 
illustration is homely ; but it is enough for 
our purpose, if it be effective. I may ac- 
complish the doing of what God bids ; but 
have no pleasure in God himself. The for- 
cible constraining of the hand, may make 
out many a visible act of obedience, but the 
relish of the heart may refuse to go along 
with it. The outer man may be all in a 
bustle about the commandments of God, 
while to the inner man God is an offence 
and a weariness. His neighbours may look 
at him, and ail that their eye can reach may 
be as clean as snow-water can make it. But 
the eye of God reaches a great deal farther. 
He is the discerner of the thoughts and in- 
tents of the heart, and he may see the foul- 
ness of spiritual idolatry in every one of its 
receptacles. The poor man has no more 
conquered his rebellious affections, than he 
has conquered his distaste for wormwood. 
He may fear God ; he may listen to God ; 
and, in outward deed, may obey God. But 
he does not, and he will not, love God; and 
while he drags a heavy load of tasks, and 
duties, and observances after him, he lives 
in the hourly violation of the first and 
greatest of the commandments. 

Would any parent among you count it 
enough that you obtained a service like this 
from one of your children ? Would you 
be satisfied with the obedience of his hand, 
while you knew that the affections of his 
heart were totally away from you? Let 
every one requirement, issued from the 
chair of parental authority, be most rigidly 
and punctually done by him, would not the 
sullenness of his alienated countenance turn 
the whole of it into bitterness? It is the 
heart of his son which the parent longs af- 
ter ; and the lurking distaste and disaffection 
which rankle there, can never, never be 
made up by such an obedience, as the 
yoked and the tortured negro is compelled 
to yield to the whip of the overseer. The 
service may be done ; but all that can mi- 
nister satisfaction in the principle of the 
service, may be withheld from it; and 
though the very last item of the bidden per- 
formance is rendered, this will neither mend 
the deformity of the unnatural child, nor 
soothe the feelings of the afflicted and the 
mortified father. 

God is the Father of spirits; and the 
willing subjection of the spirit is that which 
he requires of us. " My son, give me thy 
heart ;" and if the heart be withheld, God 
says of all our visible performances, "To 
what purpose is the multitude of your sacri- 
fices unto me ?" The heart is his require- 
ment ; and full, indeed, is the title which he 
prefers to it. He put life into us ; and it is 
he who hath drawn a circle of enjoyments, 
and friendships, and interests around us. 
Every thing that we take delight in, is min- 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



145 



istered to us out of his hand. He plies us 
every moment with his kindness ; and when 
at length the gift stole the heart of man 
away from the Giver, so that he became a 
lover of his own pleasure, rather than a 
lover of God, even then would he not leave 
us to perish in the guilt of our rebellion. 
Man made himself an alien, but God was 
not willing to abandon him; and, rather 
than lose him for ever, did he devise a way 
of access by which to woo, and to welcome 
him back again. The way of our recovery 
is indeed a way that his heart was set upon : 
and to prove it, he sent his own eternal Son 
into the world, who unrobed him of all his 
glories and made himself of no reputation. 
He had to travel in the greatness of his 
strength, that he might unbar the gates of 
acceptance to a guilty world ; and now that, 
in full harmony with the truth and the jus- 
tice of God, sinners may draw nigh through 
the blood of the atonement, what is the 
wonderful length to which the condescen- 
sion of God carries him? Why, he actually 
beseeches us to be reconciled ; and, with a 
tone more tender than the affection of an 
earthly father ever prompted, does he call 
upon us to turn, and to turn, for why should 
w T e die? if, after all this, the antipathy of na- 
ture to God still cleave to us ; if, under the 
power of this antipathy, the service we 
yield be the cold and unwilling service of 
constraint ; if, with many of the visible out- 
works of obedience, there be also the strag- 
glings of a reluctant heart to take away 
from this obedience all its cheerfulness, is 
not God defrauded of his offering ? Does 
there not rest on the moral aspect of our 
character, in reference to him, all the odions- 
ness of unnatural children ? Let our outer 
doings be what they may, does there not 
adhere to us the turpitude of having deeply 
revolted against that Being whose kindness 
has never abandoned us ? And, though pure 
in the eye of our fellows, and our hands be 
clean as with snow-water, is there nothing 
in our hearts against which a spiritual law 
may denounce its severities, and, the giver 
of that law may lift a voice of righteous ex- 
postulation ? " Hear ye now what the Lord 
saith : Arise, contend thou before the moun- 
tains, and let the hills hear thy voice. Hear 
ye, O mountains, the Lord's controversy, 
and ye strong foundations of the earth : 
for the Lord hath a controversy with his 
people, and he will plead with Israel. O 
my people, what have I done unto thee, 
and wherein have I wearied thee ? testify 
against me." 

It is not easy to lay open the utter naked- 
ness of the natural heart in reference to 
God; or to convince the possessor of it, 
that, under the guise of his many plausi- 
bilities, there may lurk that which gives to 
sin all its hideousness. 

The mere man of ordinances cannot ac- 
T 



quiesce in what he reckons to be the ex- 
aggerations of orthodoxy upon this subject; 
nor can he at all conceive how it is possible 
that, with so much of the semblance of god- 
liness about him, there should, at the same 
time, be within him the very opposite of 
godliness. It is, indeed, a difficult task to 
carry upon this point the conviction of him 
who positively loves the Sabbath, and to 
whom the chime of its morning bells brings 
the delighU. associations of peace and of 
sacredness, — who has his hours of prayer, 
at which he gathers his family around him, 
and his hours of attendance on that house 
where the man of God deals out his weekly 
lessons to tue assembled congregation. It 
may be in vein to tell him, that God in fact 
is a weariness to his heart, when it is at- 
tested to him by his own consciousness « 
that when the preacher is before him, and 
the people are around him, and the pro- 
fessed object of their coming together is to 
join in the exercise of devotion, and to grow 
in the knowledge of God, he finds in fact 
that all is pleasantness, that his eye is not 
merely filled with the public exhibition, and 
his ear regaled by the impressiveness of a 
human voice, but that the interest of his 
heart is completely kept up by the succes- 
sion and variety of the exercises. It may 
be in vain to tell him, that this religion of 
taste or this religion of habit, or this re- 
ligion of inheritance, may utterly consist 
with the deep and the determined worldli- 
ness of all his affections, — that he whom 
he thinks to be the God of his Sabbath is not 
the God of his week ; but that, throughout 
all the successive days of it, he is going 
astray after the idols of vanity, and living 
without God in the w^orld. This is demon- 
stration enough of all his forms, and all his 
observations, being a mere surface display, 
without a living principle of piety. But 
perhaps it may serve more effectually to 
convince him of it, should we ask him, how 
his godliness thrives in the closet, and what 
are the workings of his heart, in the ab- 
stract and solitary hour of intercourse with 
the unseen Father. In church, there may 
be much to interest him, and to keep him 
alive. But when alone, and deserted by all 
the accompaniments of a solemn assembly, 
we should like to know with what vivacity 
he enters on the one business of meditating 
on God, and holding converse with God. 
Is the sense of the all-seeing and ever-pre- 
sent Deity enough for him ; and does love 
to God brighten and sustain the moments 
of solitary prayer ? The mind may have 
enough to interest it in church ; but does 
the secret exercise of fellowship with the 
Father bring no distaste, and no weariness 
along with it? Is it any thing more than 
the homage of a formal presentation ? And 
when the business of devotion is thus un- 
peopled of all its externals, and of all its 



146 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



accessaries ; when thus reduced to a naked 
exercise of spirit, can you appeal to the 
longings, and the affections of that spirit, as 
the essential proof of your godliness ? And 
do you never, on occasions like this, dis- 
cover that which is in your hearts, and de- 
tect their enmity to him who formed them ? 
Do you afford no ground for the complaint 
which he uttered of old, when he said, 
" Have I been a wilderness unto Israel, and 
a land of darkness?" and do you not per- 
ceive that with this direction of your feel- 
ings and your desires away from the living 
God, though you be outwardly clean, as by 
the operation cf snow water, he may plunge 
you in the ditch, and make your own clothes 
to abhor you. 

We shall conclude this part of our sub- 
ject with two observations. 

First. The efforts of nature may, in point 
of inadequacy, be compared to the applica- 
tion of snow water. Yet there is a practical 
mischief here, in which the zeal of contro- 
versy, bent on its one point, and its one 
principle, may unconsciously involve us. 
We are not, in pursuit of any argument 
whatever, to lose sight of efforts. We are 
not to deny them the place, and the im- 
portance which the Bible plainly assigns to 
them ; nor are we to forbear insisting upon 
their performance by men, previous to con- 
version, and in the very act of conversion, 
and in every period of the progress, how- 
ever far advanced it may be, of the new 
creature in Jesus Christ our Lord. We 
speak just now of men, previous to con- 
version, and we call to your remembrance 
the example of John the Baptist. The in- 
judicious way in which the doings of men 
have been spoken of, has had practically 
this effect on many an inquirer. Since do- 
ing is of so little consequence, let us even 
abstain from it. Now the forerunner of 
Christ spake a very different language. He 
unceasingty called upon the people to do ; 
and this was the very preaching which the 
divine wisdom appointed as a preparation 
for the Saviour. " He that hath two coats, 
let him impart to him that hath none ; and 
he that hath meat, let him do likewise." — 
" Exact no more than that which is ap- 
pointed." — " Do violence to no man ; neither 
accuse any falsely, and be content with 
your wages." Was not John, then, it may 
be said, a mere superficial reformer ? Had 
he stopped short at this, he would have 
been no better. His teaching could have 
done no more than is done by the mere 
application of snow water. But he did not 
stop here. He told the people that there 
was a preacher and a preaching to come 
after him, in comparison of which he and 
his sermons were nothing. He pointed the 
eye and the expectation of his hearers full 
upon one that was greater than himself; | 
and, while he baptized with water unto re- 1 



pentance, and called upon the people to 
frame their doings, he told them of one 
mightier than he, who was to baptize with 
the Holy Ghost and with fire. 

And, Secondly, That you may be con- 
vinced of the utter necessity of such a bap- 
tism, let us affirm the inadequacy of all 
the fairest virtues and accomplishments of 
nature. God has, for the well-being of 
society, provided man with certain feel- 
ings and constitutional principles of action, 
which lead him to a conduct beneficial to 
those around him; to which conduct he 
may be carried by the impulse of these 
principles, with as little reference to the 
will of God, as a mother, among the in- 
ferior animals, when constrained by the 
sweet and powerful influences of natural 
affection, to guard the safety, and provide 
for the nourishment of her young. Take 
account of these principles as they exist in 
the bosom of man, and you there find com- 
passion for the unfortunate ; the shame of 
detection in any thing mean, or disgrace- 
ful; the desire of standing well in the 
opinion of his fellows ; the kindlier chari- 
ties, which shed a mild and a quiet lustre 
over the walks of domestic life ; and those 
wider principles of patriotism and public 
usefulness which, combined with an appe- 
tite for distinction, will raise a few of the 
more illustrious of our race to some high 
and splendid career of beneficence. Now, 
these are the principles which, scattered in 
various proportions among the individuals 
of human kind, gave rise to the varied hues 
of character among them. Some possess 
them in no sensible degree; and they are 
pointed at with abhorrence, as the most 
monstrous and deformed of the species. 
Others have an average share of them; 
and they take their station amongst the 
common-place characters of society. And 
others go beyond the average; and are 
singled out from amongst their fellows, as 
the kind, the amiable, the sweet-tempered, 
the upright, whose hearts swell with hon- 
ourable feeling, or whose pulse beats high 
in the pride of integrity. 

Now, conceive for a moment, that the 
belief of a God were to be altogether ex- 
punged from the world. We have no doubt 
that society would suffer most painfully in 
its temporal interests by such an event. 
But the machine of society might still be 
kept up ; and on the face of it you might 
still meet with the same gradations of cha- 
racter, and the same varied distribution of 
praise, among the individuals who compose 
it. Suppose it possible, that the world could 
be broken off from the system of God's ad- 
ministration altogether; and that he were to 
consign it, with all its present accommoda- 
tions, and all its natural principles, to some 
far and solitary place, beyond the limits of 
his economy— we should still find ourselves 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



147 



m the midst of a moral variety of character ; 
and man, sitting in judgment over it, would 
say of some, that they are good, and of 
others, that they are evil. Even in this 
desolate region of atheism, the eye of the 
sentimentalist might expatiate among beau- 

ous and interesting spectacles, — amiable 
mothers shedding their graceful tears over 
the tomb of departed infancy ; high-toned 
integrity maintaining itself unsullied amid 
the allurements of corruption ; benevolence 
plying its labours of usefulness ; and patri- 
otism earning its proud reward, in the testi- 
mony of an approving people. Here, then, 
you have compassion, and natural affec- 
tion, and justice, and public spirit — but 
would it not be a glaring perversion of lan- 
guage to say, that there was godliness in 
a world, where there was no feeling and 
no conviction about God, 

In the midst of this busy scene, let God 
reveal himself, not to eradicate these princi- 
ples of action — but giving his sanction to 
whatsoever things are just, and lovely, and 
honourable, and of good report, to make 
himself known, at the same time as the 
Creator and Upholder of all things, and as 
the Being with whom all his rational off- 
spring had to do. Is this solemn an- 
nouncement from the voice of the Eternal 
to make no difference upon them? Are 
those principles which might flourish and 
be sustained on a soil of atheism, to be 
counted enough even after the wonderful 
truth of a living and a reigning God has 
burst upon the world ? You are just ; — right, 
indispensably right. You say you have as- 
serted no more than your own. But this 
property is not your own. He gave it to 
you, and he may call upon you to give to 
him an account of your stewardship. You 
are compassionate ; — right also. But what 
if he set up the measure of the sanctuary 



upon your compassion ? and, instead of a 
desultory instinct, excited to feeling by a 
moving picture of sensibility, and limited in 
effect to a humble fraction of your expendi- 
ture, he call upon you to love your neigh- 
bour as yourself, and to maintain this prin- 
ciple at the expense of self-denial, and in 
the midst of manifold provocations ? You 
love your children ; — still indispensably 
right. But what if he should say, and he 
has actually said it, that you may know 
how to give good gifts unto your children, 
and still be evil? and that if you love father, 
or mother, or wife, or children, more than 
him, you are not worthy of him ? The lus- 
tre of your accomplishments dazzles the 
eye of your neighbourhood, and you bask 
with a delighted heart in the sunshine of 
glory. But what if he should say, that his 
glory, and not your own, should be the 
constant aim of your doings ? and that if 
you love the praise of men more than the 
praise of God, you stand, in the pure and 
spiritual records of heaven, convicted of 
idolatry ? You love the things of the world ; 
and the men of the world, coming together 
in judgment upon you, take no offence at 
it. But God takes offence at it. He says, — 
and is he not right in saying ? — that if the 
gift withdraw the affections from the Giver, 
there is something wrong ; that the love of 
these things is opposite to the love of the 
Father ; and that, unless you withdraw your 
affections from a world that perisheth, you 
will perish along with it. Surely if these, 
and such like principles, may consist with 
the atheism of a world where God is un- 
thought of and unknown, — you stand con- 
victed of a still deeper and more determined 
atheism, who under the revelation of a God 
challenging the honour that is due unto his 
name, are satisfied with your holding in 
society, and live without him in the world. 



SERMON V. 

The Judgment of Men, compared with the Judgment of God. 

** With me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man's judgment — he that judget 
me is the Lord." — 1 Corinthians iv. 3, 4. 

» 



III. When two parties meet together on 
the business of adjusting their respective 
claims, or when, in the language of our 
text, they come together in judgment, the 
principles on which they proceed must de- 
pend on the relation in which they stand 
to each other : and we know not a more 
fatal or a more deep laid delusion, than that 
by which the principles, applicable to the 
case of a man entering into judgment with 
his fellow-men, are transferred to the far dif- 



ferent case of man's entering into judgment 
with his God. Job seems to have been 
aware of this difference, and at times to 
have been humbled by it. In reference to 
man, he stood on triumphant ground, and 
often spoke of it in a style of boastful vindi- 
cation. No one could impeach his justice. 
No one could question his generosity. And 
he made his confident appeal to the remem- 
brance of those around him, when he says 
of himself, that he delivered the poor that 



148 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM, 



cried, and the fatherless, and him that had 
none to help him; that the blessing of him 
that was ready to perish came upon him, 
and he caused the widow's heart to sing 
for joy ; that he put on righteousness, and it 
clothed him, and his judgment was as a 
robe and a diadem ; that he was eyes to the 
blind, and feet was he to the lame ; that he 
was a father to the poor, and the cause that 
he knew not, he searched out. On these 
grounds did he challenge the judgment 
of man, and actually obtained it. For we 
are told, because he did all this, that when 
the ear heard him, then i't blessed him, and 
when the eye saw him, it gave witness unto 
him. 

There is not a more frequent exercise of 
mind in society, than that by which the 
members of it form and declare their judg- 
ment of each other — and the work of thus 
deciding is a work which they all share in, 
and on which, perhaps, there is not a day 
of their lives wherein they are not called 
upon to expend some measure of attention 
and understanding — and we know not if 
there be a single topic that more readily 
engages the conversation of human beings — 
and often do we utter our own testimony, 
and hear the testimony of others to the 
virtues and vices of the absent— and out of 
all this has arisen a standard of estimation — 
and it is such a standard as many may 
actually reach, and some have actually ex- 
ceeded-— and thus it is, that it appears to re- 
quire a very extended scale of reputation 
to take in all the varieties of human charac- 
ter — and while the lower extremity of it 
is occupied by the dishonest, and the per- 
fidious, and the glaringly selfish, who are 
outcasts from general respect ; on the higher 
extremity of it, do we behold men, to whom 
are awarded, by the universal voice, all the 
honours of a proud and unsullied excel- 
lence—and their walk in the world is digni- 
fied by the reverence of many salutations 
—and as we hear of their truth and their 
uprightness, and their princely liberalities, 
and of a heart alive to every impulse of 
sympathy, and of a manner sweetened by 
all the delicacies of genuine kindness; — 
who does not see that, in this assemblage 
of moral graces and accomplishments, there 
is enough to satisfy man, and to carry the 
admiration of man ? and can we wonder if, 
while we gaze on sc'fine a specimen of our 
nature, we should not merely pronounce 
upon him an honourable sentence at the 
tribunal of human judgment, but we should 
conceive of him that he looks as bright and 
faultless in the eye of God, and that he is 
in every way meet for his presence and his 
friendship in eternity. 

Now, if there be any truth in the dis- 
tinction of our text; if a man may have the 
judgment of his fellows, and yet be utterly 
unfit for contending in judgment with God; 



if there be any emphasis in the considera- 
tion, that he is God, and not man ; or any 
delusion in conceiving of him, that he is 
altogether like unto ourselves, — may not 
all that ready circulation of praise, and of 
acknowledgement, which obtains in society, 
carry a most ruinous, and a most bewitching 
influence along with it ? Is it not possible 
that on the applause of man there may be 
reared a most treacherous self-complacency? 
Might not we build a confidence before 
God, on this sandy foundation? Think 
you not, that it is just this ill-supported con- 
fidence which shuts out from many a heart 
the humiliating doctrine of the gospel? Is 
there no such imagination as that because 
we are so well able to stand our ground 
before the judgment of the world, we shall 
be equally well able to stand our ground be- 
fore the judgment-seat of the great day? Are 
there not many who, upon this very prin- 
ciple, count themselves rich and to have 
need of nothing? And have you never 
met with men of character, and estimation in 
society, who, surrounded by the gratulations 
of their neighbourhood, find the debasing 
views of humanity, which are set before us 
in the New Testament, to be beyond their 
comprehension ; who are utterly in the dark, 
as to the truth and the justness of such re- 
presentations, and with whom the voice of 
God is therefore deafened by the voice and 
the testimony of men ? They see not them- 
selves in that character of vileness and of 
guilt which he ascribes to them. They are 
blind to the principle of the text, that he is 
not a man ; and that they may not be able 
to answer him, though they may be able 
to meet the every reproach, and to hold out 
the lofty vindication against every charge, 
which any one of their fellows may prefer. 
And thus it is, that many live in the habitual 
neglect of a salvation which they cannot 
see that they require ; and spend their days 
in an insidious security, from which nothing 
but the voice of the last messenger, or the 
call of the last trumpet, shall awaken them. 

To do away this delusion, we shall ad- 
vert to two leading points of distinction 
between the judgment of men and that of 
God. There is a distinction founded upon 
the claims which God has a right to pre- 
fer against us, when compared with the 
claims which our fellow-men have a right 
to prefer against us ; — and there is a dis- 
tinction founded upon that clearer and more 
elevated sense which God has of that holi- 
ness without which no man shall see his 
face, of that moral worth without which we 
are utterly unfit for the society of heaven. 

The people around me have no right to 
complain, if I give to every man his own ; 
or, in other words, if I am true to all my 
promises, and faithful to all my bargains ; 
and if what I claim as justice to myself, I 
most scrupulously render to others, when 



V.] DEPRAVITY OF 

they are in like circumstances with myself. 
Now, let me do all this, and I earn amongst 
my fellows the character of a man of 
honour and of equity. Did I live with such 
a character in an unf alien world, these vir- 
tues would not at all signalize me, though 
the opposite vices would mark me out for 
universal surprise and indignation. But 
it so happens that I live in a world full of 
corruption, where deceit and dishonesty are 
common ;— where, though the higher de- 
grees of them are spoken of with abhor- 
rence, the lower degrees of them are looked 
at with a very general connivance ; — where 
the inflexibility of a truth that knows not 
one art of concealment, and the delicacy of 
an honour that was never tainted, would 
greatly signalize me ; — and thus it is, that 
though I went not beyond the strict require- 
ments of integrity, yet by my nice and un- 
varying fulfilment of them, should I rise 
above the ordinary level of human reputa- 
tion, and be rewarded by the most flatter- 
ing distinctions of human applause. 

But again, I may in fact give to others 
more than their own; and in so doing I may 
earn the credit of other virtues. I may 
gather an additional lustre around my cha- 
racter, and collect from those around me 
the tribute of a still louder and more rap- 
turous approbation. I may have a heart 
constitutionally framed to the feeling and 
the exercise of compassion. I may scatter 
on every side of me the treasures of benefi- 
cence. - 1 may have an eye for pity, and a 
hand open as day for melting charity. I 
may lay aside a large proportion of my 
wealth to the service of others, — and what 
with a bosom open to every impulse of pity, 
and with an eye ever lighted up by the 
smile of courteousness, and with a ready 
ear to all that is offered in the shape of 
complaint or supplication, I may not go be- 
yond the demands of others, but I may 
go greatly beyond all that they have a right 
to demand, and if I signalize myself by 
rendering faithfully to every man his due, 
— still more shall I signalize myself by a 
kindness that is never weary, by a liberality 
that never is exhausted. 

Now, we need not offer to assign the pre- 
cise degree to which a man must carry the 
exercise of these gratuitous virtues, ere he 
can obtain for them the good will, and the 
good opinion of society. We need not say 
by how small a fraction of his income, he 
may thus purchase the homage of his ac- 
quaintances, — at how easy a rate he may 
send away one person delighted by his af- . 
fability ; or another by the hospitality of 
his reception ; or a third by the rendering 
of a personal service ; or a fourth by the ' 
direct conveyance of a present, — or, finally, 
for what expense he may surround him- 
self by the gratitude of many poor, and the 
blessings and the prayers of many cottages. 



HUMAN NATURE. 149 

We cannot bring forward any rigid com- 
putation of this matter. But we appeal to 
the experience of your own history, and to 
your observation of others, if a man might 
not, without any painful, or any sensible 
surrender of enjoyment at all, stand out to 
the eye of others in a blaze of moral re- 
putation — if the substantial citizen might 
not, on the convivialities of friendship, be 
indulging his own taste, and at the very 
time be securing from his pleased and sa- 
tisfied guests, the attestations of their cor- 
diality — if the man of business might not 
be nobly generous to his friends in adver- 
sity, and at the same time be running one 
unvaried career of accumulation — if the 
man of society might not be charming 
every acquaintance by the truth and the 
tenderness of his expressions, and at the 
same time, instead of impairing, be height- 
ening his share of that felicity, which the 
Author of our being has annexed to human 
intercourse — if a thousand little acts of ac- 
commodation from one neighbour to an- 
other, might not swell the tide of praise and 
of popularity, and yet, as ample a remain- 
der of pleasurable feeling be left to each as 
before. And even when the sacrifice is 
more painful, and the generosity more ro- 
mantic, and man can appeal to some mighty 
reduction of wealth as the measure of his 
beneficence to others, might it not be said 
of him, if the life be more than meat, and 
the body than raiment, that still there is 
left to him more than he can possibly sur- 
render ? that, though he strip himself of all 
his goods to feed the poor, there remains 
to him that, without which all is nothing- 
ness, — that a breathing and a conscious man, 
he still treads on the face of our world, and 
bears his part in that universe of life, where 
the unfailing compassion of God still con- 
tinues to uphold him, — that instead of lying 
wrapt in the insensibility of an eternal 
grave, he has all the images of a waking 
existence around him, and all the glories 
of immortality before him, — that instead of 
being withered to a thing of nought, and 
gone to that dark and hidden land, where 
all is silence and deep annihilation, a thou- 
sand avenues of enjoyment are still open to 
him, and the promise of a daily provision is 
still made sure, and he is free to all the 
common blessings of nature, and he is 
freer still to all the consolations, and to all 
the privileges of the gospel. 

Thus it appears that after I have fulfilled 
all the claims of men, and men are satis- 
, fled, — that after having gone, in the exer- 
cise of liberality, beyond these claims, and 
men are filled with delight and admiration, 
— that after, on the footing of equal and in- 
dependent rights, I have come into judg- 
ment with my fellows, and they have 
awarded to me the tribute of their most 
honourable testimony, the footing on which 



150 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



[SEFM. 



I stand with God still remains to be at- 
tended to, and his claims still remain to be 
adjusted, — and the mighty account still lies 
uncancelled between the creature and the 
Creator, — between the man who, in refer- 
ence to his neighbours, can say, I give every 
one his own, and out of my own I expa- 
tiate in acts of tenderness and generosity 
amongst them, and the God who can say, 
You have nothing that you did not receive, 
and all you ever gave is out of the ability 
which I have conferred upon you, and this 
wealth is not your own, but his who be- 
stowed it, and who now calls upon you to 
render an account of your stewardship, — 
between the man who has purchased, by a 
fraction of his property, the good will of 
his acquaintances, and the God who asserts 
his right to have every fraction of it turned 
into an expression of gratitude, and devoted 
to his glory, — between the man who holds 
up his head in society, because his justice, 
and the ministrations of his liberality, have 
distinguished him, and the God who de- 
mands the returns of duty and of acknow- 
ledgement, for giving him the fund of these 
ministrations, and for giving what no money 
can purchase, — for putting the principle of 
life into his bosom, — for furnishing him 
with all his senses, and, through these in- 
lets of communication, giving him a part, 
and a property, in all that is around him, — 
for sustaining him in all the elements of 
his being, and conferring upon him all his 
capacities, and all his joys. 

Now, what we wish you to feel is, that 
the judgment of men may be upon your 
side, and the judgment of God be most 
righteously against you — that while from 
the one nothing is heard but admiration and 
gratitude, from the other, there may be such 
a charge of sinfulness, as, when set in or- 
der before your eye, will convince you, that 
he by whom you consist, is defrauded of 
all his offerings, — that, while all the com- 
mon honesties and humanities of social life, 
are acquitted to the entire satisfaction of 
others, and to the entire purity of your 
own reputation in the world, your whole 
heart and conduct may be utterly pervaded 
by the habit of ungodliness, — that, while 
not one claim which your neighbours can 
prefer, is not met most readily, and dis- 
charged most honourably, the great claims 
of the Creator, over those whom he has 
formed, may lie altogether unheeded; and 
he, your constant benefactor, be not loved,, 
— and he, your constant preserver, be not 
depended on,— and he, your most legiti- 
mate sovereign, be not obeyed, — and he, 
the unseen Spirit, who pervades all, and 
upholds all, be neither worshipped in spirit 
and in truth, nor vested with the hold of a 
rightful supremacy over your rebellious 
affections. 

God is not man; nor can we measure 



what is due to him, by what is due to our 
fellows in society. He made us, and he 
upholds us, and at his will the life which is 
in us, will, like the expiring vapour, pass 
away ; and the tabernacle of the body, that 
curious frame-work which man thinks he 
can move at his own pleasure, when it is 
only in God that he moves, as well as lives, 
and has his being, will, when abandoned 
by its spirit, mix with the dust out of which 
it was formed, and enter again into the un- 
conscious glebe from which it was taken. 
It was, indeed, a wondrous preferment for 
unshapen clay to be wrought into so fine an 
organic structure, but not more wondrous 
surely than that the soul which animates 
it should have been created out of nothing ; 
and what shall we say, if the compound 
being so originated, and so sustained, and 
depending on the will of another for every 
moment of his continuance, is found to 
spurn the thought of God, in distaste and 
disaffection away from him ? When the 
spirit returns to him who sitteth on the 
throne ; when the question is put, Amid all 
the multitude of your doings in the world, 
what have you done unto me ? When the 
rightful ascendency of his claims over every 
movement of the creature is made manifest 
by him who judgeth righteously; when 
the high but just pretensions of all things 
being done to his glory ; of the entire heart 
being consecrated in every one of its re- 
gards to his person and character ; of the 
whole man being set apart to his service, 
and every compromise being done away, 
between the world on the one hand, and 
that Being on the other, who is jealous of 
his honour : — when these high pretensions 
are set up and brought into comparison 
with the character and the conduct of any 
one of us, and it be inquired in how far we 
have rendered unto God the ever-breathing 
gratitude that is due to him, and that obe- 
dience which we should feel at all times to 
be our task and our obligation ; how shall 
we fare in that great day of examination, 
if it be found that this has not been the 
tendency of our nature at all? and when 
he who is not a man shall thus enter into 
judgment with us, how shall we be able to 
stand ? 

Amid all the praise we give and receiv 
from each other, we may have no claims 
to that substantial praise which cometh 
from God only. Men may be satisfied, but 
it followeth not that God is satisfied. Un- 
der a ruinous delusion upon this subject, 
we may fancy ourselves to be rich, and 
have need of nothing, while, in fact, Ave are 
naked, and destitute, and blind, and misera- 
ble. And thus it is, that there is a morality 
of this world, which stands in direct oppo- 
sition to the humbling representations of 
the Gospel; which cannot comprehend 
what it means by the utter worthlessness 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



151 



and depravity of our nature ; which pas- 
sionately repels this statement, and that too 
on its own consciousness of attainments 
superior to those of the sordid, and the profli- 
gate, and the dishonourable ; and is fortified 
in its resistance to the truth as it is in Jesus, 
by the flattering testimonials which it gathers 
to its respectability and its worth from the 
various quarters of human society. 

A just sense of the extent of claim which 
God has upon his own creatures, would lay 
open this hiding-place of security : would 
lead us to see, that to do some things for 
our neighbours, is not the same with doing 
all things for our Maker; that a natural 
principle of honesty to man, is altogether 
distinct from a principle of entire devoted- 
ness to God ; that the tithe which we be- 
stow upon others is not an equivalent for a 
total dedication unto God of ourselves, and 
of all which belongs to us; that we may 
present those around us with many an of- 
fering of kindness, and not present our 
bodies a living sacrifice to God, which is 
our reasonable service ; that we may earn 
a cheap and easy credit for such virtues 
as will satisfy the world, and be utter 
strangers to the self-denial, and the spiritu- 
ality, and the mortification of every earthly 
desire, and the affection for the things that 
are above ; — all of which graces enter as 
essential ingredients into the sanctification 
of the gospel. 

But this leads us to the second point of 
distinction between the judgment of man 
and that of God, — even his clearer and more 
elevated sense of that holiness without 
which no man shall see his face, and of 
that moral worth without which we are 
utterly unfit for the society of heaven. 

Man's sense of the right and the wrong 
may be clear and intelligent enough, in so 
far as that part of character is concerned 
which renders us fit for the society of earth. 
Those virtues, without which a community 
could not be held together, are both urgently 
demanded by that community, and highly 
appreciated by it. The morality of our 
earthly life, is a morality which is in direct 
subservience to our earthly accommodation ; 
and seeing that equity, and humanity, and 
civility, are in such visible and immediate 
connexion with all the security, and all the 
enjoyment which they spread around them, 
it is not to be wondered at, that they should 
throw over the character of him by whom 
they are exhibited, the lustre of a grateful 
and a superior estimation. And thus it is, 
that even without any very nice or exqui- 
site refinement of these virtues, many an 
ordinary character will pass ; — and should 
that character be deformed by the levities, 
or even by the profligacies of intemperance, 
he who sustains it may still bear his part 
among the good men of society, — and keep 
away from it all that malignity, and all that 



dishonesty, which have a disturbing effect 
on the enjoyments of others, and these 
others will still retain their kindliness for 
the good-humoured convivialist, — and he 
will be suffered to retain his own taste, and 
his own peculiarities ; and, though it may 
be true, that chastity, and self-control, and 
the severer virtues of personal discipline 
and restraint, would in fact give a far more 
happy and healthful tone to society than at 
present it possesses, yet this influence is 
not so conspicuous, and heedless men do not 
look so far : and therefore it is, that in spite 
of his many outward and positive trans- 
gressions of the divine law, many an indi- 
vidual can be referred to, who, with his 
average share of the integrities and the sen- 
sibilities of social life, has stamped upon 
him the currency of a very fair every-day 
character, who moves among his fellows 
without disgrace, and meets with acceptance 
throughout the general run of this world's 
companies. 

If such a measure of indulgence be ex- 
tended to the very glaring iniquities of the 
outer man, let us not wonder though the 
errors of the heart, the moral diseases of 
the spirit, the disorganization of the inner 
man, with its turbulent passions, and its 
worldly affections, and its utter deadness to 
the consideration of an overruling God, 
should find a very general indulgence 
among our brethren of the species. Bring 
a man to sit in judgment over the depravi- 
ties of our common nature, and unless 
these depravities are obviously pointed 
against the temporal good of society, what 
can we expect, but that he will connive at 
the infirmities of which he feels himself to 
be so large and so habitual a partaker? 
What can we expect but that his moral 
sense, clouded as it is against the discern- 
ment of his own exceeding turpitude, will 
also perceive but dimly, and feel but ob- 
tusely, a similar turpitude in the character 
of others ? What else can we look for, than 
that the man who fires so promptly on the 
reception of an injury, will tolerate in his 
fellow all the vindictive propensities ? — or, 
that the man who feels not in his bosom a 
single movement of principle or of tender- 
ness towards God, will tolerate in another 
an equally entire habit of ungodliness ? — 
or, that the man who surrenders himself to 
the temptations of voluptuousness, will per- 
ceive no enormity of character at all in the 
unrestrained dissipations of an acquaint- 
ance? — and, in a word, when I see a man 
whose rights I have never invaded, who 
has no complaint of personal wrong or 
provocation to allege against me, and who 
shares equally with myself in nature's 
blindness and nature's propensities, I will 
not be afraid of entering into judgment with 
him ; — nor shall I stand in awe of any pene- 
trating glance from his eye, of any indig- 



152 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



fSKRM. 



nant remonstrance from his offended sense 
of what is righteous, though there be made 
bare to his inspection all my devotedness 
to the world, and all my proud disdain at 
the insolence of others, and all my anger 
at the sufferings of injustice, and all my in- 
difference to the God who formed me, and 
all those secrecies of an unholy and an un- 
heavenly character, which are to be brought 
out into full manifestation on the great day 
of the winding up of this world's history. 

It is a very capital delusion that God is 
like unto man, — " Thou thoughtest that I 
was altogether such a one as thyself; but 
I will reprove thee, and set thy sins in order 
before thine eyes. Now consider this, ye 
that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, 
and there be none to deliver." 

Man and man may come together in judg- 
ment, and retire from each other in mutual 
complacency. But when man and God 
thus come together, there is another prin- 
ciple, and another standard of examination. 
There is a claim of justice on the part of 
the Creator, totally distinct from any claim 
which a fellow-creature can prefer, — and 
while the one will tolerate all that is con- 
sistent with the economy and the interest 
of the society upon earth, the other can 
tolerate nothing that is inconsistent with 
the economy and the character of the so- 
ciety in heaven. God made us for eternity. 
He designed us to be the members of a 
family which never separates, and over 
which he himself presides in the visible 
glory of all that worth, and of all that moral 
excellence, which belong to him. He formed 
us at first after his own likeness ; and ere we 
can be re-admitted into that paradise from 
which we have been exiled, we must be 
created anew in the image of God. These 
spirits must be made perfect, and every taint 
of selfishness and impurity be done away 
from them. Heaven is the place into which 
nothing that is unclean or unholy can enter ; 
and we are not preparing for our inherit- 
ance there, unless there be gathering upon 
us here, the lineaments of a celestial cha- 
racter. Now, a man may be accomplished 
in the moralities of civil and of social life, 
without so much as the semblance of such 
a character resting upon him. He may 
have no share whatsoever in the tastes, or 
in the enjoyments, or in the affections of 
paradise. There might not be a single trace 
of the mark of the Lamb of God upon his 
forehead. He who ponders so intelligently 
the secrets of the heart, may be able to 
discover there no vestige of any love for 
himself, — no sensibility at all to what is 
amiable or to what is great in the character 
of the Godhead, — no desire whatever after 
his glory, — no such feeling towards him 
who is to tabernacle with men, as will 
qualify him to bear a joyful part in the 
songs, and the praises of that city which 



has foundations. Surrounded as he is by the 
perishable admiration of his fellows, he is 
altogether out of affection, and out of ac- 
quaintance, with that Being with whom he 
has to do ; and it will be found, on the great 
day of the doings, and the deliberations of 
the judgment-seat, that as he had no relish 
for God in time, so is he utterly unfit for his 
presence, or for his friendship in eternity. 

It is said of God, that he created man after 
his own image, and it was upon losing this 
image that he was cast out of paradise : and 
ere he can be again admitted, the image 
that has been lost must again be formed on 
him. The grand qualification for the so- 
ciety of heaven is, that each of its members 
be like unto God. In the selfish and sensual 
society of earth, there is many a feature of 
resemblance to the Godhead 4hat is most 
readily dispensed with ; and many an indi- 
vidual here obtains applause and toleration 
among his fellows, though there is not one 
attribute of the saintly character belonging 
to him.. Let him only fulfil the stipulations 
of integrity, and smile benignity upon his 
friends, and render the alacrity of willing 
and valuable services to those who have 
never offended him, and on the strength of 
such performances as these, may he rise to 
a conspicuous place in the scale of this 
world's reputation. But what would have 
been the sad event to us, had these been 
the only performances which went to illus- 
trate the character of the Godhead, — had 
he been a God of whom we could say no 
more, than that he possessed the one attri- 
bute of an unrelenting justice, or even that' 
he went beyond this attribute, in the exer- 
cise of kindness to those who loved him, 
and in acts of beneficenee to those who had 
never offended him ? Do we not owe our 
place and our prospect to the love of God 
for his enemies? Is it not from the riches 
of his forbearance and long-suffering, that 
we draw all our enjoyments in time, and 
all our hopes for eternity 1 Is it not be- 
cause, though grieved with sinners every 
day, he still waits to be gracious ; that he 
holds out to us, his heedless and wayward 
children, the beseeching voice of reconcilia- 
tion ; and puts on such an aspect of tender- 
ness to those who have not ceased from 
their birth to vex his Holy Spirit, and to 
thwart him every hour by the pe-rverseness 
of their disobedience ? This is the godlike 
attribute on which all the privileges of our 
fallen race are suspended ; and yet against 
the intimation of which, nature, when urged 
by the provocations of injustice, rises in 
such a tumult of strong and impetuous re- 
sistance. It is through the putting forth of 
this attribute, that any redeemed sinners 
are to be found among the other society of 
heaven; but into which no member shall 
be admitted out of this corrupt world, till 
there be stamped and realized on his own 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



153 



person, that feature of the divinity to which 
he owes a distinction so exalted. And tell 
us, ye men who are so jealous of right and 
of honour, who take sudden fire at every 
insult, and suffer the slightest imagination 
of another's contempt, or another's unfair- 
ness, to chase from your bosom every feel- 
ing of complacency ;— ye men whom every 
fancied affront puts into such a turbulence 
of emotion, and in whom every fancied in- 
fringement stirs up the quick and the re- 
sentful appetite for justice — how will you 
stand the rigorous application of that test 
by which the forgiven of God are ascer- 
tained, even that the spirit of forgiveness is 
in them, and by which it will be pronounced 
whether you are indeed the children of the 
highest, and perfect as your Father in 
heaven is perfect ? 

But we must hasten to a close, and will, 
therefore, barely suggest some other mat- 
ters of self-examination. We ask you, to 
think of the facility with which you might 
obtain the approbation of men, without be- 
ing at all like unto God in the holiness of 
his character. We ask you to think of the 
delight which he takes in the contempla- 
tion of what is pure, and moral, and righ- 
teous. We ask you to think how one great 
object of his creation, was to diffuse over 
the face of it a multiplied resemblance of 
himself, — and that, therefore, however fit 
you may be for sustaining your part in the 
alienated community of this world, you are 
most assuredly unfit for the great and the 
general assembly of the spirits of just men 
made perfect,— if unlike unto God who is 
in the midst of them, you have no conge- 
nial delight with the Father of all, in the 
contemplation of spiritual excellence. Now, 
are you not blind to the glories and the 
perfections of that Being who realizes this 
excellence to a degree that is infinite? Does 
not the creature fill up all your avenues of 
enjoyment, while the Creator is forgotten? 
In reference to God, is there not an utter 
dulness and insensibility of all your re- 
gards to him ? If thus blind to the percep- 
tion of that supreme virtue and loveliness 
which reside in the Godhead, are you not, 
in fact, and by nature an outcast from the 
Godhead ? And an outcast will you ever 
remain, until your character be" brought 
under some mighty revolutionizing influ- 
ence which is able to shift the currency of 
your desires, tod to over-rule nature with 
all her obstinate habits, and all her fond 
and favourite predilections. 

These are topics of great weight and 
great pregnancy ; but we leave them to your 
own thoughts, and only ask you at present 
to look at the vivid illustration of them that 
may be gathered out of the history of Job. 
In reference to his fellows, he could make 
a triumphant appeal to the honour and the 
humanity which adorned him, — he could 
U 



speak of the splendid career of beneficence 
that he had run, — and in the recollection of 
the plaudits that had surrounded him, he 
could boldly challenge the inspection of all 
his neighbours, and of all his enemies, on 
the whole tract of Ms visible history in the 
world. He protested his innocence before 
them, and even so long as he had only heard 
of God by the hearing of the ear did he ad- 
dress him in the language of justification. 
But when God at length revealed himself, — 
when the worth and the majesty of the 
Eternal stood before him in visible array, — 
when the actual presence of his Maker 
brought the claims of his Maker to bear 
impressively upon his conscience, it was 
not merely the presence of the power of 
God which overawed him ; it was the pre- 
sence of the righteousness of God which 
convinced him, — and when, from the bright 
assemblage of all that was pure, and holy, 
and graceful in the aspect of the Divinity, 
he turned the eye of contemplation down- 
ward upon himself,— O it is instructive to 
be told, how the vaunting patriarch shrunk 
into all the depths of self-abasement^ at so 
striking a manifestation ; and how he said, 
" I have heard of thee by the hearing of the 
ear, but now mine eye seeth thee; where- 
fore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and 
in ashes." 

It is indeed a small matter to be judged 
of man's judgment. He who judges us is 
God. From this judgment there is no es- 
cape, and no hiding place. The testimony 
of our fellows will as little avail us in the 
day of judgment, as the help of our fel- 
lows will avail us in the hour of death. 

We may as well think of seeking a refuge 
in the applause of men, from the condem- 
nation of God, as we may think of seeking 
a refuge in the power or the skill of men, 
from the mandate of God, that our breath 
shall depart from us. And, have you never 
thought, when called to the chamber of the 
dying man— when you saw the warning 
of death upon his countenance, and how its 
symptoms gathered and grew, and got the 
ascendency over all the ministrations of 
human care and of human tenderness, — 
when it every day became more visible, 
that the patient was drawing to his close, 
and that nothing in the whole compass of 
art or any of its resources, could stay the 
advances of the sure and the last malady, 
— have you never thought, on seeing the 
bed of the sufferer surrounded by other 
comforters than those of. the Patriarch, — 
when, from morning to night, and from 
night to morning, the watchful family sat 
at his couch, and guarded his broken slum- 
bers, and interpreted ail his signals, and 
tried to hide from his observation the tears 
which attested him to be the kindest of 
parents, — when the sad anticipation spread 
its gloomy stillness over the household, and 



154 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



even set forth an air of seriousness and con- 
cern upon the men of other families, — when 
you have witnessed the despair of friends, 
who could only turn them to cry at the 
spectacle of his last agonies, and had seen 
how little it was that weeping children and 
inquiring neighbours could do for him, — 
when you have contrasted the unrelenting 
necessity of the grave, with the feebleness 
of every surrounding endeavour toward it, 
has the thought never entered within you, 
How powerless is the desire of man ! — how 
sure and how resistless is the decree of God! 

And on the day of the second death, will 
it be found, that it is not the imagination of 
man, but the sentence of God that shall 
stand. When the sountji of the last trumpet 
awakens us from the grave, and the ensigns 
of the last day are seen on the canopy of 
heaven, and the tremor of the dissolving ele- 
ments is felt upon the earth, and the Son of 
God with his mighty angels are placed around 
the judgment-seat,and the men of all ages and 
of all nations are standing before it, and wait- 
ing the high decree of eternity, — then will it 
be found, that as no power of man can save 
his fellow from going down to the grave of 
mortality, so no testimony of man can save 
his fellow from going down to the pit of con- 
demnation. Each on 4hat day will mourn 
apart. Each of those on the left hand, en- 
grossed by his own separate contemplation, 
and overwhelmed by the dark and the louring 
futurity of his own existence, will not have 
a thought or a sympathy to spare for those 
who are around him. Each of those on the 
right hand will see and acquiesce in the righ- 



teousness of God, and be made to acknow 
ledge, that those things which are highly 
esteemed among men are in his sight an 
abomination. When the judge and his at- 
tendants shall come on the high errand of 
this world's destinies, they will come from 
God, — and the pure principle they shall 
bring along with them from the sanctuary 
of heaven, will be the entire subordination 
of the thing formed to him who formed it. 
In that praise which upon earthly feelings 
the creatures offer one to another, we behold 
no recognition of this principle whatever; 
and therefore it is, that it is so very differ- 
ent from the praise which cometh from 
God only. And should any one of these crea- 
tures be made on that great day of manifes- 
tation, to see his nakedness, — should the 
question, what have you done unto me? 
leave him speechless ; should at length, con- 
victed of his utter rebelliousness against 
God, he try to find among the companions 
of his pilgrimage, some attestation to the 
kindness that beamed from him upon his 
fellow mortals in the world, — they will not 
be able to hide him from the coming wrath. 
In the face of all the tenderness they ever bore 
him, the severity of an unreconciled law- 
giver must have upon him its resistless 
operation. They may ail bear witness to 
the honour and the generosity of his doings 
among men, but there is not one of them 
who can justify him before God. Nor among 
all those who now yield him a ready testi- 
mony on earth w T ill he find a day's-man be- 
twixt him and his Creator, who can lay his 
hand upon them both. 



SERMON VI. 
The Necessity of a Mediator between God and Man. 

" Neither is there any day's-man betwixt us, that might lay his hands upon us both."— Job ix. 33. 



IV. The feeling of Job, at the time of his 
uttering the complaint which is recorded in 
the verses before us, might not have been 
altogether free of a reproachful spirit towards 
those friends who had refused to advocate his 
cause, and who had even added bitterness 
to his distress by their most painful and 
unwelcome arguments. And well may it 
be our feeling, and that too without the 
presence of any such ingredient along with 
it — that there is not a man upon earth who 
can execute the office of a day's-man be- 
twixt us and God, — that taking the com- 
mon sense of this term, there is none who 
can act as an umpire between us the chil- 
dren of ungodliness, and the Lawgiver, 
whom we have so deeply offended; or 
taking up the term that occurs in the Sep- 



tuagint version of the Bible, that amongst 
all our brethren of the species, not an indi- 
vidual is to be found who, standing in the 
place of a mediator, can lay his hand upon 
us both. It is, indeed, very possible, that all 
this may carry the understanding, and at 
the same time have all the inefficiency of a 
cold and general speculation. But should 
the Spirit, whose office it is to convince us 
of sin, lend the power of his demonstration 
to the argument,— should he divide asunder 
our thoughts, and enable us to see that, 
with the goodly semblance of what is fair 
and estimable in the sight of man, all within 
us is defection from the principle of loyalty 
to God— that while we yield a duty as the 
members of society, the duty that lies upon 
us, as the creatures of the Supreme Being, 



VI.] 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATUHE. 



155 



ts, iii respect of the spirit of allegiance which 
gives it all its value, fallen away from, by 
every one of ns, — should this conviction 
cleave to us like an arrow sticking fast, and 
work its legitimate influence, in causing us 
to feel all the worthlessness of our charac- 
ters, and all the need and danger of our 
circumstances, — then would the urgency of 
the case be felt as well as understood by us, 
— nor should we be long of pressing the 
inquiry of where is the day's-man betwixt 
us that might lay his hand upon us both! 

And, in fact, by putting the Mediator 
away from you, — by reckoning on a state 
of safety and acceptance without him, what 
is the ground upon which, in reference to 
God, you actually put yourselves? We 
speak not at present of the danger of per- 
sisting in such an attitude of independence, 
of its being one of those refuges of treache- 
ry in which the good man of the world is 
often to be found, — of its being a state 
wherein peace, when there is no peace, 
lulls him by its flatteries unto a deceitful 
repose. We are not at present saying how 
ruinous it is to rest a security upon an im- 
posing exterior, when in fact the heart is 
not right in the sight of God, and while the 
reproving eye of him, who judgeth not as 
man judgeth, is upon him, or how poison- 
ous is the unction that comes upon the soul 
from those praises which upon the mere 
exhibition of the social virtues, are rung 
and circulated through society. But, 
in addition to the danger, let us insist upon 
the guilt of thus casting the offered Medi- 
ator away from us. It implies in the most 
direct possible way, a sentiment of the suffi- 
ciency of our own righteousness. It is ex- 
pressly saying of our obedience, that it is 
good enough for God. It is presumptuously 
thinking that what pleases the world may 
please the Maker of it, even though he him- 
self has declared it to be a world lying in 
wickedness. There is an aggravation you 
will perceive in all this which goes beyond 
the simple infraction of the commandment. 
It is, after the infraction of it, challenging 
for some remainder or for some semblance 
of conformity, the reward and approbation 
of the God whose law we have dishonour- 
ed. It is, after we have braved the attribute 
of the Almighty's justice, by incurring its 
condemnation, making an attempt upon the 
attribute itself, by bringing it down to the 
standard of a polluted obedience-. It is, after 
insulting the throne of God's righteousness, 
embarking in the still deadlier enterprize 
of demolishing all the stabilities which 
guard it ; and spoiling it of that truth which 
has pronounced a curse on the children of 
iniquity, — of that holiness which cannot 
dwell with evil, — of that unchangeableness 
which will admit of no compromise with 
sinners that can violate the honours of the 
Godhead, or weaken the authority of his 



government over the nni verse that he has 
formed. It is laying those paltry accom- 
plishments which give you a place of dis- 
tinction among your fellows, before that 
God of whose throne justice and judgment 
are the habitation, and calling upon him to 
connive at all that you want, and to look 
with complacency on all that you possess. 
It is to bring to the bar of judgment the 
poor and the starving samples of virtue 
which are current enough in a world 
broken loose from its communion with 
God, and to defy the inspection upon them 
of God's eternal Son, and of the angels he 
brings along with him to witness the righ- 
teousness of his decisions. Sin has indeed 
been the ruin of our nature — but this re- 
fusal of the Saviour of sinners lands them 
in a perdition still deeper and more irreco- 
verable. It is blindness to the enormity of 
sin. It is equivalent to a formally an- 
nounced sentiment on your part that your 
performances, sinful as they are, and pol- 
luted as they are, are good enough for hea- 
ven. It is just saying of the offered Saviour 
that you do not see the use of him. It is a 
provoking contempt of mercy ; and causing 
the measure of ordinary guilt to overflow, 
by heaping the additional blasphemy upon 
it, 01 calling upon God to honour it by his 
rewards, and to look to it with the compla- 
cency of his approbation. 

We cannot, then, we cannot draw near 
unto God, by a direct or independent ap- 
proach to him. And who in these circum- 
stances, is fit to be the day's-man betwixt 
you ? There is not a fellow-mortal from 
Adam downward, who has not sins. of his 
own to answer for. There is not one of 
them who has not the sentence of guilt in- 
scribed upon his own forehead, and who is 
not arrested by the same unsealed barrier 
which keeps you at an inacessible distance 
from God. There is not one of them whose 
entrance into the holiest of all would not 
inflict on it as great a profanation, as if any 
of you were to present yourselves before 
him, who dwelleth there, without a Media- 
tor. There lieth a great gulf between God 
and the whole of this alienated world ; 
and after looking round amongst all the 
men of all its generations, we may say, in 
the language of the text, that there is not a 
day's-man betwixt us who can lay his hand 
upon us both. 

What we aim at as the effect of all these 
observations, is, that you should feel your 
only security to be in the revealed and the 
offered mediator ; that you should seek to 
him as your only effectual hiding-place; 
and who alone, in the whole range of uni- 
versal being, is able to lay his hand upon 
you, and shield you from the justice of 
the Almighty, and to lay his hand upon 
God, and stay the fury of the avenger. By 
him the deep atonement has been rendered. 



156 

By him the mystery has been accomplish- 
ed, which angels desired to look into. By 
him such a sacrifice for sin has been offered, 
as that, in the acceptance of the sinner, 
every attribute of the Divinity is exalted ; 
and the throne of the Majesty in the hea- 
vens, though turned into a throne of grace, 
is still upheld in all its firmness, and in all 
its glory. Through the unchangeable priest- 
hood of Christ, the vilest of sinners may 
draw nigh, and receive of that mercy which 
has met with truth, and of that peace which 
is in close alliance with righteousness ; and 
without one perfection of the Godhead 
being surrendered by this act of forgiveness, 
all are made to receive a higher and more 
wondrous manifestation; for though he 
will by no means clear the guilty, yet there 
is no place for vengeance, when all their 
guilt is cleared away by the blood of the ever- 
lasting covenant ; and though he executeth 
justice upon the earth, yet he can be just while 
the justifier of them who believe in Jesus. 

The work of our redemption is every 
where spoken of as an achievement of 
strength — as done by the putting forth of 
mighty energies — as the work of one who, 
travelling in his own unaided greatness, 
had to tread the wine-press alone ; and who, 
when of the people there was none to help 
him, did by his own arm bring unto him 
salvation. To move aside the obstacle 
which beset the path of acceptance ; to re- 
instate the guilty into favour with the of- 
fended and unchangeable Lawgiver: to 
avert from them the execution of that sen- 
tence to which there were staked the truth 
and justice of the Divinity ; to work out a 
pardon for the disobedient, and at the same 
time to uphold in all their strength the pillars 
of that throne which they had insulted; to in- 
tercept the defied penalties of the law, and at 
the same time magnify it, and to make it ho- 
nourable; thusto bend, as it were, the holy and 
everlasting attributes of God, and in doing 
so, to pour over them the lustre of a high and 
awful vindication, — this was an enterprise of 
such height, and depth, and length, as no cre- 
ated being could fulfil, and which called forth 
the might and the counsel of him who is the 
power of God, and the wisdom of God. 

When no man could redeem his neigh- 
bour from the grave, — God himself found 
out a ransom. When not one of the beings 
whom he had formed could offer an ade- 
quate expiation, — did the Lord of hosts 
awaken the sword of vengeance against his 
fellow. When there was no messenger 
among the angels who surrounded his 
throne, that could both proclaim and pur- 
chase peace for a guilty world, — did God 
manifest in the flesh descend in shrouded 
majesty amongst our earthly tabernacles, 
and pour out his soul unto the death for us, 
and purchase the church by his own blood, 
and bursting away from the grave which 



[SERM. 

could not hold him, ascend to the throne 
of his appointed mediatorship ; and now he, 
the first and the last, who was dead and is 
alive, and maketh intercession for trans- 
gressors, is able to save' to the uttermost 
all who come unto God through him ; and 
standing in the breach between a holy God 
and the sinners who have offended him, 
does he make reconciliation, and lay his 
hand upon them both. 

But it is not enough that the Mediator be 
appointed by God, — he must be accepted 
by man. And to incite our acceptance does 
he hold forth every kind and constraining 
argument. He casts abroad, over the whole 
face of the world, one wide and universal 
assurance of welcome. " Whosoever cometh 
unto me shall not be cast out." " Come 
unto me all ye who labour and are heavy 
laden, and I will give you rest." " Where 
sin hath abounded, grace hath much more 
abounded." " Whatsoever ye ask in my 
name ye shall receive." The path of access 
to Christ is open and free of every obstacle, 
which kept fearful and guilty man at an 
impracticable distance from the jealous and 
unpacified Lawgiver. He hath put aside 
the obstacle, and now stands in its place. 
Let us only go in the way of the Gospel, 
and we shall find nothing between us and 
God but the author and finisher of the Gos- 
pel, — who, on the one hand, beckons to him 
the approach' of man with every token of 
truth and of tenderness; and, on the other 
hand, advocates our cause with God, and 
fills his mouth with arguments, and pleads 
that very atonement which was devised in 
love by the Father, and with the incense 
of which he was well pleased, and claims, 
as the fruit of the travail of his soul, all 
who put their trust in him ; and thus, laying 
his hand upon God, turns him altogether 
from the fierceness of his indignation. 

But Jesus Christ is something more than 
the agent of our justification, — he .is the 
agent of our sanctification also. Standing 
between us and God, he receives from him 
of that Spirit which is called the promise 
of the Father, and he pours it forth in free 
and generous dispensation on those who 
believe in him. Without this spirit there 
may, in a few of the goodlier specimens of 
our race, be within us the play of what is 
kindly in constitutional feeling, and with- 
out us the exhibition of what is seemly in 
a constitutional virtue ; and man, thus stand- 
ing over us in judgment, may pass his ver- 
dict of approbation ; and all that is visible 
in our doings may be pure as by the ope- 
ration of snow water. But the utter irre- 
ligiousness of our nature will remain as 
entire and as obstinate as ever. The aliena- 
tion of our desires from God will persist 
with unsubdued vigour in our bosoms ; and 
sin, in the very essence of its elementary 
principle, will still lord it over the inner 



EPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



VI.] DEPRAVITY OF 

man with all the power of its original as- 
cendency, — till the deep, and the searching, 
and the pervading influence of the love of 
God be shed abroad in our hearts by the 
Holy Ghost This is the work of the great 
Mediator. This is the might and the mys- 
tery of that regeneration, without which 
we shall never see the kingdom of God. 
This is the,office of Him to whom all power 
is committed, both in heaven and in earth, — 
who reigning in heaven, and uniting its 
mercy with its righteousness, causes them 
to flow upon earth in one stream of celes- 
tial influence ; and reigning on earth, and 
working mightily in the hearts of its peo- 
ple, makes them meet for the society of 
heaven, — thereby completing the wonderful 
work of our redemption, by which, on the 
one hand he brings the eye of a holy God 
to look approvingly on the sinner, and on 
the other hand, makes the sinner fit for the 
fellowship, and altogether prepared for the 
enjoyment of God. 

Such are the great elements of a sinners 
religion. But if you turn from the pre- 
scribed use of them, the wrath of God 
abideth on you. If you kiss not the Son 
while he is in the way, you provoke his 
anger, and when once it begins to burn, they 
only are blessed who have put their trust in 
him. If, on the fancied sufficiency of a 
righteousness that is without godliness, you 
neglect the great salvation, you will not 
escape the severities of that day, when the 
Being with whom you have to do shall en- 
ter with you into judgment ; and it is only 
by fleeing to the Mediator, as you would 
from a coming storm, that peace is made 
between you and God, and that, sanctified 
by the faith which is in Jesus, you are 
made to abound in such fruits of righteous- 
ness, as shall be to praise and glory at the 
last and the solemn reckoning. 

Before we conclude, we shall just advert 
to another sense, in which the Mediator be- 
tween God and man may be affirmed to 
have laid his hand upon them bo h :— He 
fills up that mysterious interval which lies 
between every corporeal being, and the 
God who is a spirit and is invisible. 

No man hath seen God at any time, — 
and the power which is unseen is terrible. 
Fancy trembles before its own picture, and 
superstition throws its darkest imagery over 
it. The voice of the thunder is awful, but 
not so awful as the conception of that angry 
being who sits in mysterious concealment, 
and gives it all its energy. In these sketches 
of the imagination, fear is sure to predomi- 
nate. We gather an impression of Nature's 
God, from those scenes where Nature 
threatens, and looks dreadful. We speak 
not of the theology of the schools, and the 
empty parade of its demonstrations. We 
speak of the theology of actual feeling, — 
that theology which is sure to derive its 



HUMAN NATURE. 157 

lessons from the quarter whence the human 
heart derives its strongest sensations, — and 
we refer both to your own feelings, and to 
the history of this world's opinions, if God 
is more felt or more present to your ima- 
ginations hi the peacefulness of spring, or 
the loveliness of a summer landscape, than 
when winter with its mighty elements 
sweeps the forest of its leaves, — when the 
rushing of the storm is heard upon our 
windows, and man flees to cover himself 
from the desolation that walketh over the 
surface of the world. 

If nature and her elements be dreadful, 
how dreadful that mysterious and unseen 
Being, who sits behind the elements he has 
formed, and gives birth and movement to 
all things ! It is the mystery in which he 
is shrouded. — it is that dark and unknown 
region of spirits, where he reigns hi glory, 
and stands revealed to the immediate view 
of his worshippers, — it is the inexplicable 
manner of his being so far removed from 
that province of sense, within which the 
understanding of man can expatiate, — it is 
its total unlikeness to all that nature can 
furnish to the eye of the body, or to the 
conception of the mind, which animates 
it, — it is all this which throws the Being 
who formed us at a distance so inaccessi- 
ble, — which throws an impenetrable mantle 
over his way, and gives us the idea of some 
dark and untrodden interval betwixt the 
glory of God, and all that is visible and 
created. 

Now, Jesus Christ has lifted up this mys- 
terious veil, or rather he has entered within 
it. He is now at the right hand of God ; 
and though the brightness of his Father's 
glory, and the express image of his person, 
he appeared to us in the palpable charac- 
ters of a man ; and those high attributes of 
truth, and justice, and mercy, which could 
not be felt or understood, as they existed 
in the abstract and invisible Deity, are 
brought down to our conceptions in a man- 
ner the most familiar and impressive, by 
having been made, through Jesus Christ, 
to flow in utterance from human lips, and 
to beam in expressive physiognomy from a 
human countenance. 

So long as I had nothing before me but 
the unseen spirit of God, my mind wandered 
in uncertainty, my busy fancy was free to 
expatiate, and its images filled my heart 
with disquietude and terror. But in the 
life, and person, and history of Jesus Christ, 
the attributes of the Deity are brought down 
to the observation of the senses ; and I can 
no longer mistake them, when in the Son, 
who is the express image of his Father, I 
see them carried home to my understanding 
by the evidence and expression of human 
organs, — when I see the kindness of the 
Father, in the tears which fell from his Son 
at the tomb of Lazarus,— when I see his 



158 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



justice blended with his mercy, in the ex- 
clamation, " O Jerusalem, Jerusalem," by- 
Jesus Christ- uttered with a tone more 
tender than the sympathy of human bosom 
ever prompted, while he bewailed the sen- 
tence of its desolation,— and in the look of 
energy and significance which he threw 
upon Peter, I feel the judgment of God 
himself, flashing conviction upon my con- 
science, and calling me to repent while his 
wrath is suspended, and he still waiteth to 
be gracious. 

And it was not a temporary character 
which he assumed. The human kindness, 
and the human expression which makes 
it intelligible to us, remained with him 
till his latest hour. They survived his re- 
surrection, and he has carried them along 
with him to the mysterious place which he 
now occupies. How do I know all this ? 
I know it from his history ; I hear it in the 
parting words to his mother from the cross; 



I see it in his unaltered form when he rose 
triumphant from the grave; I perceive it 
in his tenderness for the scruples of the 
unbelieving Thomas; and I am given to 
understand, that as his body retained the 
impression of his own sufferings, so his 
mind retains a sympathy for ours, as warm, 
and gracious, and endearing, as ever. We 
have a Priest on high, who is touched with 
a fellow feeling of our infirmities. My soul, 
unable to support itself in its aerial flight 
among the spirits of the invisible, now re- 
poses on Christ, who stands revealed to my 
conceptions in the figure, the countenance, 
the heart, the sympathies of a man. He 
has entered within that veil which hung 
over the glories of the Eternal ; and the 
mysterious inaccessible throne of God is 
divested of all its tenors, when I think that 
a friend who bears the form of the species, 
and know s its infirmities, is there to plead 
for me. 



SERMON VII. 
The Folly of Men measuring themselves by themselves. 

" For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves ; 
but they, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not 
wise." — 2 Corinthians, x. 12. 



St. Paul addressed these words to the 
members of a Christian congregation ; and 
were we to confine their application to 
those people of the present day, who in 
circumstances, bear the nearest resemblance 
to them, we would, in the present discourse, 
have chiefly to do with the more serious 
and declared professors of the Gospel. Nor 
should we be long at a loss for a very ob- 
servable peculiarity amongst them, against 
which to point the admonition of the 
Apostle. For, in truth there is a great dis- 
position with the members of the religious 
world, to look away from the unalterable 
standard of God's will, and to form aNStand- 
ard of authority out of the existing attain- 
ments, of those whom they conceive to be 
in the faith. We know nothing that has 
contributed more than this to reduce the 
tone of practical Christianity. We know 
not a more insidious security, than that 
which steals over the mind of him who 
when he looks to another of eminent name 
for godliness, or orthodoxy, and perceives 
in him a certain degree of conformity to the 
world, or a certain measure of infirmity of 
temper, or a certain abandonment of him- 
self to the natural enjoyments of luxury, or 
of idle gossiping, or of commenting with 
malignant pleasure on the faults and fail- 
ings of the absent, thinks, that upon such 



an example, it is safe for him to allow in 
himself an equal extent of indulgence ; and 
to go the same lengths of laxity or trans- 
gression ; and thus, instead of measuring 
himself by the perfect law of the Almighty, 
and making conformity to it the object of 
his strenuous aspirings, — does he measure 
himself and compare himself with his fel- 
low-mortals, — and pitches his ambition to 
no greater height than the accidental level 
which obtains amongst the members of his 
own religious brotherhood, and finds a quiet 
repose in the mediocrity of their actual 
accomplishments, and of their current and 
conventional observations. 

There is much in this consideration to 
alarm many of those who within the pale 
of a select and peculiar circle, look upon 
themselves as firmly seated in an enclosure 
of safety. They may be recognized by the 
society around them as one of us ; and they 
may keep the even pace of acquirement 
along with them; and they may wear all 
those marks of distinction which separate 
them from the general and unprofessing 
public ; and, in respect of Church, and of 
sacrament, and of family observances, and 
of exclusive preference for each other's 
conversation, and of meetings for prayer 
and the other exercises of Christian fellow- 
ship, they may stand most decidedly out 



« 



VII.] DEPRAVITY OF 

from the world, and most decidedly in with 
those of their own cast and their own de- 
nomination ; — and yet, in fact, there may 
be individuals, even of such a body as this, 
who instead of looking upwards to the 
Being with whom they have to do, are 
looking no further than to the testimony 
and example of those who are immediately 
around them; who count it enough that 
they are highly esteemed among men; who 
feel no earnestness, and put forth no strength 
in the pursuit of a lofty sanctification ; who 
are not living as in the sight of God, and 
are not in the habit of bringing their con- 
duct into measurement with the principles 
of that great day, when God's righteousness 
shall be vindicated in the eyes of all his 
creatures ; who, satisfied, in short, with the 
countenance of the people of their own 
communion, come under the charge of my 
text, that measuring themselves by them- 
selves and comparing themselves among 
themselves, they are not wise. 

Now, though this habit of measuring 
ourselves by ourselves, and comparing our- 
selves among ourselves, be charged by the 
Apostle, in the text, against the professors 
of a strict and peculiar Christianity ; it is 
a habit so universally exemplified in the 
world, and ministers such a deep and fatal 
security to the men of all characters who 
live in it, and establishes in their hearts so 
firm a principle of resistance against the 
humbling doctrines of the New Testament, 
that we trust we shall be excused if we 
leave out, for a time, the consideration of 
those who are within the limits of the 
Church, and dwell on the operation of this 
habit among those who are without these 
limits ; and going beyond that territory of 
observation to which the words now read 
would appear to restrict us, we shall attend 
to the effects of that principle in human 
nature which are there adverted to, in as 
far as it serves to fortify the human mind 
against an entire reception cf the truths and 
the overtures, of the Gospel. 

It may be remarked, by way of illustra- 
tion, that the habit condemned in the text is 
an abundant cause of that vanity which is 
founded on a sense of our importance. If, 
instead of measuring ourselves by our com- 
panions and equals in society, we brought 
ourselves into measurement with our supe- 
riors, it might go far to humble and chastise 
our vanity. The rustic conqueror on some 
arena of strength or of dexterity, stands 
proudly elevated among his fellow-rustics 
who are around him. Place him beside the re- 
turned warrior, who can tell of the hazards, 
and the achievements, and the desperations 
of the great battle in which he had shared 
the renown and the danger; and he will 
stand convicted of the humility of his own 
performances. The man who is most keen, 
and, at the same time, most skilful in the 



HUMAN NATURE. 159 

busy politics of his corporation, triumphs in 
the consciousness of that sagacity by which 
he has baffled and overpowered the devices 
of his many antagonists. But take him to 
the high theatre of Parliament, and bring 
him into fellowship with the man who has 
there won the mighty game of superiority, 
and he will feel abashed at the insignifi- 
cance of his own tamer and homelier pre- 
tensions. The richest individual of the 
district struts throughout his neighbour- 
hood in all the glories of a provincial emi- 
nence. Carry him to the metropolis of the 
empire, and he hides his diminished head 
under the brilliancy of rank far loftier than 
his own, and equipage more splendid than 
that by which he gathers from his sur- 
rounding tributaries, the homage of a re- 
spectful admiration. The principle of all this 
vanity was seen by the discerning eye of 
the Apostle. It is put down for our instruc- 
tion in the text before us. And if w r e, instead 
of looking to our superiority above the level 
of our immediate acquaintanceship, pointed 
an eye of habitual observation to our inferi- 
ority beneath the level of those in society 
who are more dignified and more accomplish- 
ed than ourselves, — such a habit as this might 
shed a .graceful humility over our charac- 
ters, and save us from the pangs and the 
delusions of a vanity which was not made 
for man. 

And let it not be said of those, who, in the 
more exalted walks of life, can look to few 
or to none above them, that they can derive 
no benefit from the principle of my text, be- 
cause they are placed beyond the reach of 
its application. It is true of him who is on 
the very pinnacle of human society, that 
standing sublimely there, he can cast a 
downward eye on all the ranks and varieties 
of the world. But, though in the act of 
looking beneath him to men, he may gather 
no salutary lesson of humility — the lesson 
should come as forcibly upon him as upon 
any of his fellow mortals, in the act of 
looking above him to God. Instead of com- 
paring himself with the men of this world, 
let him leave the world and expatiate in 
thought over the tracts of immensity, — let 
him survey the mighty apparatus of worlds 
scattered in such profusion over its distant 
regions ; let him bring the whole field of the 
triumphs of his ambition into measurement 
with the magnificence that is above him, 
and around him, — above all, let him rise 
through the ascending series of angels, and 
principalities, and powers, to the throne of 
the august Monarch on whom all is sus- 
pended, — and then will the lofty imagina- 
tion of his heart be cast down, and all 
vanity die within him. 

Now, if all this be obviously true of that 
vanity which is founded on a sense of our 
importance, might it not be as true of that 
complacency which is founded on a sense 



160 



DEPRAVITY OF H 



UMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



of our worth. Should it not lead us to sus- 
pect the ground of this complacency, and to 
fear lest a similar delusion be misleading us 
into a false estimate of our own righteous- 
ness ? When we feel a sufficiency in the 
act of measuring ourselves by ourselves, 
and comparing ourselves among ourselves, 
is it not the average virtue of those around 
us that is the standard of measurement? Do 
we not at the time, form our estimate of 
human worth upon the character of man as 
it actually is, instead of forming it upon the 
high standard of that pure and exalted law 
which tells us what the character ought to 
be? Is it not thus that many are lulled into 
security, because they are as good or better 
than their neighbours? This may do for 
earth, but the question we want to press is, 
will it do for heaven? It may carry us 
through life with a fair and equal character 
in society, and even when we come to die, 
it may gain us an epitaph upon our tomb- 
stones. But after death cometh the judg- 
ment; and in that awful day judgment is 
laid to the line and righteousness to the 
plummet, every refuge of lies will be swept 
away, and every hiding-place of security be 
laid open. 

Under the influence of this delusion, 
thousands and tens of thousands are posting 
their infatuated way to a ruined and un- 
done eternity. The good man of society 
lives on the applause and cordiality of his 
neighbours. He compares himself with his 
fellow-men; and their testimony to the 
graces of his amiable, and upright, and ho- 
nourable character, falls like the music of 
paradise upon his ears. And it were also 
the earnest of paradise, if these his flatterers 
and admirers in time were to be his judges 
in the day of reckoning. But, alas ! they 
will only be his fellow-prisoners at the bar. 
The eternal Son of God will preside over 
the solemnities of that day. He will take 
the judgment upon himself, and he will 
conduct it on his own lofty standard of ex- 
amination, and not on the maxims or the 
habits of a world lying in wickedness. O 
ye deluded men ! who carry your heads so 
high, and look so safe and so satisfied amid 
the smooth and equal measurements of 
society, — do you ever think how you are 
to stand the admeasurement of Christ and 
of his angels? and think you that the 
fleeting applause of mortals, sinful as your- 
selves, will carry an authority over the 
mind of your judge, or prescribe to him 
that solemn award which is to fix you for 
eternity? 

In the prosecution of the following dis- 
course, let us first attempt to expose the 
i folly of measuring ourselves by ourselves, 
and comparing ourselves amongst our- 
selves ; and then point out the wisdom op- 
posite to this folly, which is recommended 
in the gospel. 



I. The folly of measuring ourselves by 
ourselves is a lesson which admits of many 
illustrations. The habit is so universal. It 
is so strikingly exemplified, even among the 
most acknowledged outcasts from all that 
is worthy, and all that is respectable in 
general estimation. There is not a congre- 
gated mass of human beings, associated in 
one common pursuit, or brought together 
by one common accident, among whom 
there is not established either some tacit or 
proclaimed morality, to the observance of 
which, or to the violation of which, there is 
awarded admiration or disgrace, by the 
voice of the society that is formed by them. 
You cannot bring two or more human 
beings to act in concert without some con- 
ventional principle of right and wrong 
arising out of it, which either must be prac- 
tically held in regard, or the concert is dis- 
sipated. And yet it may be altogether a 
concert of iniquity. It may be a concert 
of villany and injustice against the larger 
interests of human society. It may be a 
banded conspiracy against the peace and 
the property of the commonwealth; and 
there may not be a member belonging to it 
who does not carry the stamp of outlawry 
upon his person, and who is not liable, and 
rightly liable, to the penalties of an out- 
raged government, against which he is bid- 
ding, by the whole habit of his life, a daily 
and systematic defiance. And yet even 
among such a class of the species as this, 
an enlightened observer of our nature will 
not fail to perceive a standard of morality, 
both recognized and acted upon by all its 
individuals, and in reference to which mo- 
rality, there actually stirs in many a bosom 
amongst them a very warm and enthusi- 
astic feeling of obligation, — and some will 
you find, who, by their devoted adherence 
to its maxims, earn among their compa- 
nions all the distinctions of honour and of 
virtue, — and others who, by falling away 
from the principles of the compact, become 
the victims of a deep and general execra- 
tion. And thus may the very same thing 
be perceived with them, that we see in the 
more general society of mankind — a scale 
of character, and, corresponding to it, a scale 
of respectability, along which the members 
of the most wicked and worthless associa- 
tion upon earth may be ranged according 
to the gradation of such virtues as are there 
held in demand, and in reverence ; and thus 
there will be a feeling of complacency, and 
a distribution of applause, and a conscious 
superiority of moral and personal attain- 
ment, and all this grounded on the habit of 
measuring themselves by themselves, and 
comparing themselves amongst themselves. 

The first case of such an exhibition which 
we offer to your notice, comes so aptly in 
for the purpose of illustration, that homely 
and familiar as it is, we cannot resist the 



VII.] 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



m 



introduction of it We allude to the case 
of smugglers. These men. in as far at least 
as it respects one tie of allegiance, may be 
considered as completely broken loose from 
the government of their country. They 
have formed themselves into a plot against 
the interests of the public revenue, and it 
may be generally said of them, that they 
have no feeling whatever of the criminality 
of their undertaking. On this point there 
is utterly wanting the sympathy of any 
common principle between the administra- 
tors of the law and the transgressors of the 
law. — and yet it would be altogether untrue 
to nature and to experience to say of the 
latter, that they are entire strangers to the 
feeling of every moral obligation. They 
have a very strong sense of obligation to 
each other. There are virtues amongst 
them which serve to signalize certain mem- 
bers, and vices amongst them which doom 
to infamy certain other members of their 
own association. In reference to the duties 
which they owe to government, they may 
be dead to every impression of them. But 
in reference to those duties, on the punctual 
fulfilment of which depends the success, or 
even the continuance, of their system of 
operations, they may be most keenly and 
sensitively alive. They may speak of the 
informer who has abandoned them, with 
all the intensity of moral hatred and con- 
tempt ; and of the man, again, who never 
once swerved from his fidelity; of the man, 
who, with all the notable dexterity of his 
evasions from the vigilance that was sent 
forth to track and to discover him, was 
ever known to be open as day amongst the 
members of his own brotherhood ; of the 
man, who, with the unprincipledness of a 
most skilful and systematic falsehood, in 
reference to the agents and pursuers of the 
law, was the most trusty, and the most in- 
corruptible, in reference to his fellows of 
the trade; of the man who stands highest 
amongst them in all the virtues of pledged 
and sworn companionship ; — why, of such 
a man will these roving mountaineers speak 
in terms of honest and heartfelt veneration; 
and nothing more is necessary, in order to 
throw a kind of chivalric splendour over 
him, than just to be told, along with his in- 
flexible devotedness to the cause, of his 
hardy adventures, and his hair-breadth mi- 
racles of escape, and his inexhaustible re- 
sources, and of the rapidity of his ever-suit- 
ing and ever-shifting contrivances, and of 
his noble and unquelled spirit of daring, 
and of the art and activity by which he has 
eluded his opponents, and of the unfalter- 
ing courage by which he has resisted them. 
We doubt not, that even in the history of 
this ignominious traffic, there do occur such 
deeds and characters of unrecorded hero- 
ism; and still the men who carry it on, 
measuring themselves by themselves, may 



never think of the ignominy. They will 
enjoy the praise they have one of another, 
and care not for the distant blame that is 
cast upon them by the public voice. They 
will carry in their bosoms the swelling 
consciousness of worth, and be regaled by 
the home testimony of those who are about 
them ; and all this at the very time when > 
to the general community, they offer a spec- 
tacle of odiousness; all this at the very 
time, when the power and the justice of an 
incensed government are moving forth upon 
them. 

But another case, still more picturesque, 
and, what is far better, still more subservi- 
ent to the establishment of the lesson of our 
text, may be taken from another set of ad- 
venturers, hardier, and more ferocious, and 
more unprincipled than the former. We 
allude to the men of rapine ; and who, rather 
than that their schemes of rapine should be 
frustrated, have so far overcome all the 
scruples and all the sensibilities of nature, 
that they have become men of blood. They 
live as commoners upon the world ; and, at 
large from those restraints, whether of feel- 
ing or of principle, which hold in security 
together the vast majority of this world's 
families, they are looked at by general so- 
ciety with a revolting sense of terror and 
of odiousness. And } r et, among these mon- 
sters of the cavern, and practised as they 
are in all the atrocities of the highway, will 
you find a virtue of their own, and a high- 
toned morality of their own. Living as they 
do, in a state of emancipation from the law 
universal, still there is among them a law 
isoterical, in doing homage to which, the 
hearts of these banditti actually glow with 
the movements of honourable principle ; 
and the path of their conduct is actually 
made to square with the conformities of 
right and honourable practice. Extraordi- 
nary as you may think it, the very habit of ' 
my text is in full operation among these 
very men, who have wandered so far from 
all that is deemed righteous in society; and 
disowning, as they do, our standard of prin- 
ciple altogether, they have a standard among 
themselves, on which they can adj ust a scale 
of moral estimation, and apply it in every 
exercise of judgment on the character of 
each individual who belongs to them. In 
reference to ever}- deviation that is made 
by them from the general standard of right, 
there is an entire obliteration of all their 
sensibilities, — and this is not the ground on 
which they ever think either of reproach- 
ing themselves, or of casting any imputation 
of disgrace on their companions. But, in 
reference to their own particular standard 
of right, they are all awake to the enormity 
of every act of transgression against it, — 
and thus it is, that measuring themselves 
by themselves, and comparing themselves 
amongst themselves, there is just with them 



162 



DEPRAVITY OF 



HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



as varied a distribution of praise and of 
obloquy as is to be met with on the face of 
any regular and well-ordered common- 
wealth. And who, we would ask, is the 
man among all these prowling outcasts of 
nature, on whom the law of his country 
would inflict the most unrelenting ven- 
geance ? He who is most signalized by the 
moralities of his order, — he who has gained 
by fidelity, and courage, and disinterested 
honour, the chieftainship of confidence and 
affection amongst them, — he, the foremost 
of all the desperadoes, on whose character 
perhaps the romance of generosity and truth 
is strangely blended with the stern barbari- 
ties of his calling, — and who, the most ad- 
mired among the members of his own bro- 
therhood, is, at the same time, the surest to 
bring down upon his person all the rigours 
and all the severities of the judgment-seat. 

Let us now follow with the eye of our 
observation, a number of these transgres- 
sors into another scene. Let us go into the 
place of their confinement ; and, in this re- 
ceptacle of many criminals, with all their 
varied hues of guilt and of depravity, we 
shall perceive the habit of my text in full 
and striking exemplification. The mur- 
derer stands lower in the scale of character 
than the thief. The first is worse than the 
second — and you have only to reverse the 
terms of the comparison, that you may be 
enabled to see how the second is better than 
the first. Thus, even in this repository of 
human worthlessness, we meet with grada- 
tions of character ; with the worse and the 
better and the best ; with an ascending and 
a descending scale, which runs in conti- 
nuity, from the one who stands upon its 
pinnacle, to the one who is the deepest and 
most determined in wickedness amongst 
them. It is utter ignorance of our nature 
to conceive that this moral gradation is not 
fully and frequently in the minds of the 
criminals themselves, — that there is not, 
even here, the habit of each measuring 
himself with his fellow-prisoners around 
him, and of some soothed by the conscious- 
ness of a more untainted character, and 
rejoicing over it with a feeling of secret 
elevation. They, in truth, know themselves 
to be the best of their kind, — and this know- 
ledge brings a complacency along with it, — 
and, even in this mass of profligacy, there 
swells and kindles the pride of superior at- 
tainments. But there is at least one delu- 
sion from which one and all of them stand 
exempted. The very best of them, how- 
ever much he may be regaled by the in- 
ward sense of his advantage over others, 
knows, that in reference to the law, he is 
not on a footing of merit, but on a footing 
of criminality, — knows, that though he will 
be the most gently dealt with, and that on 
him the lightest penalty will fall, yet still 
he stands to his judge and to his country, 



in the relation of a condemned malefactor- 
feels, how preposterous it were, if, on the 
plea of being the most innocent of the 
whole assemblage, he was to claim, not 
merely exemption from punishment, but 
the reward of some high and honourable 
distinction at the hands of the magistrate. 
He is fully aware of the gap that lies be- 
tween him and the administrators of jus- 
tice, — is sensible, that though he deserves 
to be beaten with fewer stripes than others, 
yet still, that, in the eye of the law, he de- 
serves to be beaten ; and that he stands at 
as hopeless a distance, as the most depraved 
of his fellows, from a sentence of complete 
justification. 

Let us, last of all, go along with these 
malefactors to the scene of their banishment. 
Let us view them as the members of a sepa- 
rated community ; and we shall widely 
mistake % if we think, that in this settle- 
ment of New South Wales, there is not the 
same shading of moral variety, there is not 
the same gradation of character, there is 
not the same scale of reputation, there is 
not the same distribution of respect, there is 
not the same pride of loftier principle, and 
debasement of more shameful and abandon- 
ed profligacy, there is not the same triumph 
of conscious superiority on the one hand, 
and the same crouching sense of un worthi- 
ness on the other, which you find in the 
more decent, and virtuous, and orderly so- 
ciety of Europe. 

Within the limits of this colony there ex- 
ists a tribunal of public opinion, from which 
praise and popularity, and reproach, are 
awarded in various proportions among all 
the inhabitants. And without the limits of 
this colony there exists another tribunal of 
public opinion, by the voice of which an 
unexpected stigma of exclusion and disgrace 
is cast upon every one of them. Insomuch, 
that the same individual may by a nearer 
judgment, be extolled as the best and the 
most distinguished of all who are around 
him, — and by a more distant judgment, he 
may have all the ignominy of an outcast 
laid upon his person and his character He 
may, at one and the same time, be regaled 
by the applause of one society, and held in 
rightful execration by another society. In 
the former, he may have the deference of a 
positive regard rendered to him for his 
virtues, — while, from the latter, he is justly 
exiled by the hateful contamination of his 
vices. And in him do we behold the in- 
structive picture of a man, who, at the bar 
of his own neighbourhood, stands the 
highest in moral estimation,— while, at a 
higher bar, he has had a mark of foulest 
ignominy stamped upon him. 

We want not to shock the pride or the 
delicacy of your feelings. But on a ques- 
tion so high as that of your eternity, we 
want to extricate you from the power of 



VII.] 



DEPRAVITY OF 



HUMAN NATURE. 



163 



every vain and bewildering delusion. We 
want to urge upon you the lesson of 
Scripture, that this world differs from a 
prison-house, only in its being a more spa- 
cious receptacle of sinners, — and that there 
is not a wider distance, in point of habit 
and of judgment, between a society of con- 
victs, and the general community of man- 
kind, than there is between the whole com- 
munity of our species, and the society of 
that paradise, from which, under the apos- 
tacy of our fallen nature, we have been 
doomed to live in dreary alienation. We 
refuse not to the men of our world the pos- 
session of many high and honourable vir- 
tues; but let us not forget, that amongst tne 
marauders of the highway, we hear, too, of 
inflexible faith, and devoted friendship, and 
splendid generosity. We deny not, that 
there exists among our species, as much 
truth and as much honesty, as serve to keep 
society together : but a measure of the very 
same principle is necessary, in order to 
perpetuate and to accomplish the end of the 
most unrighteous combinations. We deny 
not, that there flourishes on the face of our 
earth a moral diversity of hue and of 
character, and that there are the better and 
the best who have signalized themselves 
above the level of its general population; 
but so it is in the malefactor's dungeon ; 
and as there, so here, may a positive sen- 
tence of condemnation be the lot of the 
most exalted individual. We deny not, 
there are many in every neighbourhood, to 
whose character, and whose worth, the 
cordial tribute of admiration is awarded ; but 
the very same thing may be witnessed 
amongst the outcasts of every civilized ter- 
ritory, — and what they are, in reference to 
the country from which they have been 
exiled, we may be, in reference to the whole 
of God's unfallen creation. In the sight of 
men we may be highly esteemed, — and we 
may be an abomination in the sight of an- 
gels. We may receive homage from our 
immediate neighbours for all the virtues of 
our relationship with them, — while our re- 
lationship with God may be utterly dis- 
solved, and its appropriate virtues may nei- 
ther be recognized nor acted on. There 
may emanate from our persons a certain 
beauteousness of moral colouring on those 
who are around us, — but when seen through 
the universal morality of God's extended 
and all-pervading government, we may look 
as hateful as the outcasts of felony, — and 
living, as we do, in a rebellious province, 
that has broken loose from the community 
of God's loyal and obedient worshippers, 
we may, at one and the same time, be sur- 
rounded by the cordialities of an approving 
fellowship, and be frowned upon by the su- 
preme judicatory of the universe. At one 
and the same time, we may be regaled by 
the incense of this world's praise, and be the I 



objects of Heaven's most righteous execra- 
tion. 

But is this the real place, it may be asked, 
that our world occupies in the moral uni- 
verse of God ? The answer to this question 
may be obtained either out of the historical 
informations of Scripture, or out of a sur- 
vey that may be made of the actual charac- 
ter of man, and a comparison that may be 
instituted between this character and the 
divine law. We can conceive nothing more 
uniform and more decisive than the testi- 
mony of the Bible, when it tells us that 
however fair some may be in the eyes of 
men, yet that all are guilty before God; 
that in his eyes none are righteous, no not 
one : that he, who is of purer eyes than to 
behold iniquity, finds out iniquity in every 
one of us ; that there is none who under- 
standeth, and none who seeketh after God ; 
that however much we may compare our- 
selves amongst ourselves, and found a com- 
placency upon the exercise, yet that we 
have altogether gone out of the way ; that 
however distinctly we may retain, even in 
the midst of this great moral rebellion, our 
relative superiorities over each other, there 
is a wide and a general departure of the 
species from God ; that one and all of us 
have deeply revolted against him : that the 
taint of a most inveterate spiritual disease 
has overspread all the individuals of all the 
families upon earth ; insomuch, that the 
heart of man is deceitful above all things 
and desperatply wicked, and the imagina- 
tions of his thoughts are only evil, and that 
continually. 

The fall of Adam is represented, in the 
Bible, as that terribly decisive event, on 
which took place this deep and fatal un- 
hingement of the moral constitution of our 
species. From this period the malady has 
descended, and the whole history of our 
world gives evidence to its state of banish- 
ment from the joys and the communica- 
tions of paradise. Before the entrance of 
sin did God and man walk in sweet com- 
panionship together, and saw each other 
face to face in the security of a garden. A 
little further down in the history, we meet 
with another of God's recorded manifesta- 
tions. We read of his descent in thunder 
upon mount Sinai. O what a change from 
the free and fearless intercourse of Eden ! 
God, though surrounded by a people whom 
he had himself selected, here sits, if we 
may use the expression, on a throne of 
awful and distant ceremony ; and the lift- 
ing of his mighty voice scattered dismay 
among the thousands of Israel.. When he 
looked now on the children of men, he 
looked on them with an altered counte- 
nance. The days were, when they talked 
together in the lovely scenes of paradise as 
one talketh with a friend. But, on the top 
of Sinai, he wraps himself in storms, and 



164 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



orders to set bounds about the mount, lest 
the people should draw near, and God 
should break forth upon them. 

But we have an evidence to our state of 
banishment from God, which is nearer 
home. We have it in our own hearts. The 
habitual attitude of the inner man is not an 
attitude of subordination to God. The feel- 
ing of allegiance to him is practically and 
almost constantly away from us. All that 
can give value to our obedience, in the sight 
of an enlightened Spirit who looks to mo- 
tive, and sentiment, and principle, has con- 
stitutionally no place, and no residence in 
our characters. We are engrossed by other 
anxieties than anxiety to do the will, and 
to promote the honour, of him who formed 
us. We are animated by other affections 
altogether, than love to him, whose right 
hand preserves us continually. That Being 
by whom we are so fearfully and wonder- 
fully made; whose upholding presence it 
is that keeps us in life, and in movement, 
and in the exercise of all our faculties; 
who has placed us on the theatre of all our 
enjoyments, and claims over his own crea- 
tures the ascendency of a most rightful au- 
thority; — that surely is the Being with 
whom we have to do. And yet, when we 
take account of our thoughts and of our 
doings, how little of God is there ? In the 
random play and exhibition of such feelings 
as instinctively belong to us, we may gather 
around us the admiration of our fellows, — 
and so it is in a colony of exiled criminals. 
But as much wanting there, as is the ho- 
mage of loyalty to the government of their 
native land ; so much Wanting here, is the 
homage of any deference or inward regard, 
to the government of Heaven. And yet this 
is the very principle of all that obedience 
Which Heaven can look upon. If it be true 
that obedience is reward able by God, but 
that which has respect unto God, then this 
must be the essential point on which hinges 
the difference between a rebel, and a loyal 
subject to the supreme Lawgiver. The re- 
quirement we live under is to do all things 
to his glory ; and this is the measure of 
principle and of performance that will be set 
over you, — and tell us, ye men of civil and 
relative propriety, who, by exemplifying in 
the eye of your fellows such virtue, as may 
be exemplified by the outcasts of banish- 
ment, have shed around your persons the 
tiny lustre of this world's moralities ; tell 
us how you will be able to stand such a 
severe and righteous application? The 
measure by which we compare ourselves 
with ourselves, is not the measure of the 
sanctuary. When the judge comes to take 
account of us, he will come fraught with 
the maxims of a celestial jurisprudence, and 
his question will be, not, what have you 
done at the shrine of popularity, — not, what 
ihave you done to sustain a character 



amongst men, — not what have you done at 
the mere impulse of sensibilities however 
amiable, or of native principles however up- 
right, and elevated, and manly, — but what 
have you done unto me? how much of 
God, and of God's will, was there in the 
principle of your doings ? This is the hea- 
venly measure, and it will set aside all your 
earthly measures and comparisons. It will 
sweep away all these refuges of lies. The 
man whose accomplishments of character, 
however lively, were all social, and worldly, 
and relative, will hang his head in confu- 
sion when the utter wickedness of his pre- 
tensions is thus laid open, — when the God 
who gave him every breath, endowed him 
with «very faculty, enquires after his share 
of reverence and acknowledgment, — when 
he tells him from the judgment-seat, I- was 
the Being with whom you had to do, and 
yet in the vast multiplicity of your doings, 
I was seldom or never thought of, — when 
he convicts him of habitual forgetfulness 
of God, and setting aside all the paltry 
measurements which men apply in their 
estimates of one another, he brings the high 
standard of Heaven's law, and Heaven's al- 
legiance to bear upon them. 

It must be quite palpable to any man who 
has seen much of life, and still more if he 
has travelled extensively, and witnessed the 
varied complexions of morality that obtain 
in distant societies, — it must be quite ob- 
vious to such a man, how readily the moral 
feeling, in each of them, accommodates itself 
to the general state of practice and observa- 
tion,— that the practices of one country, for 
which there is a most complacent tolera- 
tion, would be shuddered at as so many 
atrocities in another country,— that in every 
given neighbourhood, the sense of right 
and of wrong, becomes just as fine or as 
obtuse as to square with its average purity, 
and its average humanity, and its average 
uprightness, — that what would revolt the 
public feeling of a retired parish in Scot- 
land as gross licentiousness or outrageous 
cruelty, might attach no disgrace whatever 
to a residenter in some colonial settlement, 
— that, nevertheless, in the more corrupt 
and degraded of the two communites, there 
is a scale of differences, a range of charac- 
ter, along which are placed the compara- 
tive stations of the disreputable, and the 
passible, and the respectable, and the super- 
excellent; and yet it is a very possible 
thing, that if a man in the last of these 
stations were to import all his habits and 
all his profligacies into his native land, 
superexcellent as he may be abroad, at 
home he would be banished from the gene- 
ral association of virtuous and well-ordered 
families. Now, all we ask of you is, to 
transfer this consideration to the matter 
before us, — to think how possible a thing 
it is, that the moral principle of the world 



VIII.] 



DEPRAVITY OF 



HUMAN NATURE. 



165 



at large, may have sunk to a peaceable 
and approving acquiescence, in the existing 
practice of the world at large, — that the 
security which is inspired by the habit of 
measuring ourselves by ourselves, and com- 
paring ourselves amongst ourselves, may 
therefore be a delusion altogether.,— that the 
very best member of society upon earth, 
may be utterly unfit for the society of hea- 
ven,— that the morality which is current 
here, may depend upon totally another set 
of principles from the morality which is 
held to be indispensable there j — and when 



we gather these principles from the book of 
God's revelation, — when we are told that the 
law of the two great commandments is, to 
love the Lord our God with all our strength, 
and heart, and mind, and to bear the same 
love to our neighbour that we do to our- 
selves,— the argument advances from a con- 
jecture to a certainty, that every inhabitant 
of earth when brought to the bar of Heaven's 
judicature, is altogether wanting ; and that 
unless some great moral renovation take effect 
upon him, he can never be admitted within 
the limits of the empire of righteousness. 



SERMON VIII. 
Christ the Wisdom of God. 

*' Christ the Wisdom of God."— 1 Corinthians i. 24. 



We cannot but remark of the Bible, how 
uniformly and how decisively it announces 
itself in all its descriptions of the state and 
character of man. — how, without offering 
to palliate the matter, it brings before us the 
totality of our alienation, how it represents 
us to be altogether broken off from our alle- 
giance to God, — and how it fears not, in the 
face of those undoubted diversities of cha- 
racter which exist in the world, to assert 
of the whole world, that it is guilty before 
him. And if we would only seize on what 
may be called the elementary principle of 
guilt, — if we would only take it along with 
us, that guilt, in reference to God, must 
consist in the defection of our regard and 
our reverence from him, — if we would only 
open our eyes to the undoubted fact, that 
there may be such an utter defection, and 
yet there may be many an amiable, and 
many a graceful exhibition, both of feeling 
and of conduct, in reference to those who 
are around us, — then should we recognize, 
in the statements of the Bible, a vigorous, 
discerning, and intelligent view of human 
nature, — an unfaltering announcement of 
what that nature essentially is, under all the 
plausibilities which serve to disguise it, — 
and such an insight, in fact, into the secre- 
cies of our inner man, as if carried home 
by that Spirit, whose office it is to apply the 
word with power into the conscience, is 
enough, of itself, to stamp upon this book, 
the evidence of the Divinity which in- 
spired it. 

But it is easier far to put an end to the 
resistance of the understanding, than to 
alarm the fears, or to make the heart soft 
and tender, under a sense of its guiltiness, or 
to prompt the inquiry,— if all those secu- 
rities, within the entrenchment of which I 
want to take my quiet and complacent re- 



pose, are thus driven in, where in the whole 
compass of nature or revelation can any 
effectual security be found? It may be 
easy to find our way amongst all the com- 
plexional varieties of our nature, to its ra- 
dical and pervading ungodliness ; and thus 
to carry the acquiescence of the judgment 
in some extended demonstration about the 
utter sinfulness of the species. But it is not 
so easy to point this demonstration towards 
the bosom of any individual, — to gather it 
up, as it were, from its state of diffusion 
over the whole field of humanity, and send 
it with all its energies concentered to a 
single heart, in the form of a sharp, and 
humbling, and terrifying conviction,— to 
make it enter the conscience of some one 
listener, like an arrow sticking fast,— or, 
when the appalling picture of a whole world 
lying in wickedness, is thus presented to the 
understanding of a general audience, to make 
each of that audience mourn apart over his 
own wickedness ; just as when, on the day 
of judgment, though all that is visible be 
shaking, and dissolving, and giving way, 
each despairing eye-witness shall mourn 
apart over the recollection of his own guilt, 
over the prospect of his own rueful and 
undone eternity. And yet, if this be not 
done, nothing is done. The lesson of the 
text has come to you in word only and not 
in power. To look to the truth in its gene- 
rality, is one thing; to look to your own 
separate concern in it, is another. What we 
want is that each of you shall turn his eye 
homewards ; that each shall purify his own 
heart from the influence of a delusion which 
we pronounce to be ruinous; that each 
shall beware of leaning a satisfaction, or a 
triumph, on the comparison of himself with 
corrupt and exiled men, whom sin has de- 
graded into outcasts from the presence of 



188 



DEPRAVITY OF 



HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



God, and the joys of paradise ; that each of 
you shall look to the measure of God's law, 
so that when the commandment comes upon 
you, in the sense of its exceeding broad- 
ness, a sense of your sin, and of your death 
in sin, may come along with it. " Without 
the commandment I was alive," says the 
Apostle ; " but when the commandment 
came, sin revived, and I died." Be assured, 
that if the utterance of such truth in your 
hearing, impress no personal earnestness, 
and lead to no personal measures, and be 
followed up by no personal movements, 
then to you it is as a sounding brass and as 
a tinkling cymbal. The preacher has been 
beating the air. That great Agent, whose 
revealed office it is to convince of sin, has 
refused to go along with him. Another in- 
fluence altogether, than that which is salu- 
tary and saving, has been sent into your 
bosom ; and the glow of the truth universal 
has deafened or intercepted the application of 
the truth personal, and of the truth particular. 

This leads us to the second thing proposed 
in our last discourse, under wh ich we shall at- 
tempt to explain the wisdom opposite to that 
folly of measuring ourselves by ourselves, 
and comparing ourselves among ourselves, 
which we have already attempted to expose. 

The first step is to give up all satisfac- 
tion with yourselves, on the bare ground, 
that your conduct comes up to the measure 
of human character, and human reputation 
around you. This consideration may be 
of importance to your place in society ; but, 
as to your place in the favour of God, it is 
utterly insignificant. The moral differences 
which obtain in a community of exiles, are 
all quite consistent with the entire oblitera- 
tion amongst them, of the allegiance that 
is due to the government of their native 
land. And the moral differences which 
obtain in the world, may, in every way, 
he as consistent with the fact, that one and 
all of us, in our state of nature, are alienated 
from God by wicked works. And, in like 
manner, as convicts may be all alive to a 
sense of their reciprocal obligations, while 
dead, in feeling and in principle, to the su- 
preme obligation under which they lie to 
the sovereign, — so may we, in reference to 
our fellow-men, have a sense of rectitude, 
and honour, and compassion, while, in re- 
ference to God, we may labour under the 
entire extinction of every moral sensibili- 
ty, — so that the virtues which signalize us, 
may, in the language of some of our old 
divines, be neither more nor less than 
splendid sins. With the possession of these 
virtues, we may not merely be incurring 
every day the guilt of trespassing and sin- 
ning against our Maker in heaven; but de- 
void as we are of all apprehension of the 
enormity of this, we may strikingly realize 
the assertion of the Bible, that we are dead 
in trespasses and sins. And we pass our 



time in all the tranquillity of death. We 
say peace, when there is no peace. Though 
in a state of disruption from God, we live 
as securely and as inconsiderately as if 
there were no question and no controversy 
betwixt us. About this whole matter, there 
is within us a spirit of heaviness and of 
deep slumber. We lie fast asleep on the 
brink of an unprovided eternity, — and, if 
possible to awaken you, let us urge you to 
compare, not your own conduct with that 
of acquaintances and neighbours, but to 
compare your own finding of the ungodli- 
ness that is in your heart with the doctrine 
of God's word about it, — to bring down the 
loftiness of your spirit to its humbling de- 
clarations — to receive it as a faithful saying, 
that man is lost by nature, and that unless 
there be some mighty transition, in his his- 
tory, from a state of nature to a state of 
salvation, the wrath of God abideth on him. 

The next inquiry comes to be, What is 
this transition? Tell me the step I should 
take, and I will take it. It is not enough, 
then, that you exalt upon your own person 
the degree of those virtues, by which you 
have obtained a credit and a distinction 
among men. It is not enough, that you 
throw a brighter and a lovelier hue over 
your social accomplishments. It is not 
enough, that you multiply the offerings of 
your charity, or observe a more rigid com- 
pliance, than heretofore, with all the requi- 
sitions of justice. All this you may do, 
and yet the great point, on which your 
controversy with God essentially hinges, 
may not be so much as entered upon. All 
this you may do, and yet obtain no nearer 
approximation to Him who sitteth on the 
throne, than the outlaws of an offended 
government for their fidelities to each other. 

To the eye of man you may be fairer than 
before.and in civil estimation be greatly more 
righteous than before,— and yet, with the un- 
quelled spirit of impiety within you, and as 
habitual an indifference as ever to all the sub- 
ordinating claims of the divine will over your 
heart and your conduct, you may stand at 
as wide a distance from God as before. And 
besides, how are we to dispose of the whole 
guilt of your past iniquities? Whether, is 
it the malefactor or the Lawgiver who is to 
arbitrate this question? God may remit 
our sins, but it is for him to proclaim this. 
God may pass them over; but it is for him 
to issue the deed of amnesty. God may 
have found out a way whereby, in consis- 
tency with his own character, and with the 
stability of his august government, he may 
take sinners into reconciliation ; but it is for 
him both to devise and to publish this way ; 
—and we must just do what convicts do, 
when they obtain a mitigation or a cancel- 
ment of the legal sentence under which 
they lie,— we must passively accept of it, 
on the terms of the deed,— we must look 



VIII. J DEPRAVITY OF 

to the warrant as issued by the sovereign, 
and take the boon or fulfil the conditions, 
just as it is there presented to us. The ques- 
tion is between us and God ; and in the ad- 
justment of this question, we must look 
singly to the expression of his will, and feel 
that it is with him, and with his authority, 
that we have exclusively to do. In one 
word, we must wait his own revelation, and 
learn from his own mouth how it is that he 
would have us to come nigh unto him. 

Let us go then to the record. " No man 
cometh unto the Father but through the 
Son." " There is no other name given un- 
der heaven, but the name of Jesus, whereby 
we can be saved.*' " Without the shedding 
of blood there is no remission of sin and 
" God hath set forth Christ to be a propitia- 
tion through faith in his blood/' " He was 
once offered to bear the sins of many,"— and 
" became sin for us, though he knew no sin, 
that we might be made the righteousness of 
God in him." " God is in Christ reconciling 
the world unto himself, and not imputing 
unto them their trespasses." " Justified by 
faith, we have peace with God through 
Jesus Christ our Lord ;" — " and we become 
the children of God, through the faith that is 
in Christ Jesus." We are ''reconciled to God 
by the death of his Son," — " and by his 
obedience are many made righteous," — and 
" where sin abounded, grace did much more 
abound." These verses sound foolishness 
to many ; but the cross of Christ is foolish- 
ness to those that perish. They appear to 
them invested with all the mysteriousness 
of a dark and hidden saying ; but if this 
Gospel be hid, it is hid to them which are 
lost. They have eyes that they cannot see 
the wondrous things contained in this book 
of God's communication; but they have 
minds which believe not, because they are 
blinded by the god of this world, lest the 
light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who 
is the image of God, should shine into them. 

And here we cannot but insist on the utter 
hopelessness of their circumstances, who 
hear these overtures of reconciliation, but 
will not listen to them. Theirs is j List the case 
of rebels turning their back on a deed of 
grace and of amnesty. We are quite confi- 
dent in stating it to the stubborn experience 
of human nature, that all who reject Christ, 
as he is offered in the Gospel, persist in that 
radical ungodliness of character on which 
the condemnation of our world mainly and 
essentially rests. And as they thus refuse 
to build their security on the foundation of 
his merits, — what, we would ask, is the 
other foundation on which they build it? 
If ever they think seriously of the matter, 
or feel any concern about a foundation on 
which they might rest their confidence be- 
fore God, they conceive it to lie in such 
feelings, and such Humanities, and such 
honesties, as make them even with the 



HUMAN NATURE. 167 

world, or as elevate them to a certain de- 
gree above the level of the world's popula- 
tion. These are the materials of the found- 
ation on which they build. It is upon the 
possession of virtues which in truth have 
not God for their object, that they propose 
to support in the presence of God the atti- 
tude of fearlessness. It is upon the testi- 
mony of fellow rebels that they brave the 
judgment of the Being who has pronounced 
of. them all, that they have deeply revolted 
against him. And all this in the face of 
God's high prerogative, to make and to pub- 
lish his own overtures. All this in contempt 
of that Mediator whom he has appointed. 
All this in resistance to the authentic deed 
of grace and of forgiveness, which has been 
sent to our world, and from which we gather 
the full assurance of God's willingness to be 
reconciled; but, at the same time, are ex- 
pressly bound down to that particular way 
in which he has chosen to dispense recon- 
ciliation. Wlio does not see, that, in these 
circumstances, the guilt of sin is fearfully 
aggravated on the part of sinners, by their 
rejection of the Gospel? Who does not 
see, that thus to refuse the grant of everlast- 
ing life in the terms of the grant, is just to 
set an irretrievable seal upon their own con- 
demnation? Wlio does not see, that, in the 
act of declining to take the shelter which is 
held out to them, they vainly imagine, 
that God will let down his approbation to 
such performances as are utterly devoid of 
any spirit of devout or dutiful allegiance to 
the Lawgiver ? This is, in fact, a deliberate 
p sting of themselves, and that more firmly 
and more obstinately than ever, on the 
ground of their rebellion — and let us no 
longer wonder, then, at the terms of that 
alternative of which w T e read so often in the 
Bible. We there read, that if we believe, we 
shall be saved ; but w r e also read, that if we 
believe not, we shall be damned. We are there 
told of the great salvation ; but how shall 
we escape if we neglect it ? We are there 
invited to lay hold of the Gospel, as the 
savour of life unto life : but, if we refuse 
the invitation, it shall be to us the savour 
of death unto death. The gospel is there 
freely proclaimed to us, for our acceptance; 
but if we will not obey the Gospel, w r e shall be 
punished with everlasting destruction from 
the presence of the Saviour's power. We are 
asked to kiss the Son while he is in the way; 
but if we do not, the alternative is that he will 
be angry,and that his wrath will burn against 
us. He is revealed to us a sure rock, on 
which if we lean we shall not be confounded ; 
but if we shift our dependence away from it, 
it will fall upon us and grind us to powder. 

And this alternative, so far from a matter 
to be wondered at, appears resolvable into 
a principle that might be easily compre- 
hended. God is the party sinned against: 
and if he have the will to be reconciled, it 



168 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



is surely for him to prescribe the way of 
it : and this he has actually done in the re- 
velation of the New Testament: and whether 
he give a reason for the way or not. certain 
it is, that in order to give it accomplish- 
ment, he sent his eternal Son into our world ; 
and this descent was accompanied with 
such circumstances of humiliation, and con- 
flict, and deep suffering, that heaven looked 
on with astonishment, and earth was bid- 
den to rejoice, because of her great salva- 
tion. It is enough for us to know that God 
lavished on this plan the riches of a wisdom 
that is unsearchable; that, in the hearing 
of sinful men, he has proclaimed its import- 
ance and its efficacy ; that every Gospel 
messenger felt himself charged with tidings 
pregnant of joy, and of mighty deliverance 
to the world. And we ask you just to con- 
ceive, in these, circumstances, what effect 
it should have on the mind of the insulted 
Sovereign, if the world, instead of respond- 
ing, with grateful and delighted welcome, to 
the message, shall either nauseate its terms, 
or, feeling in them no signincancy, shall 
turn with indifference away from it ? Are 
we at all to wonder if the King, very wroth 
with the men of such a world shall at length 
send his armies to destroy it ? Do you think 
it likely that the same God, who after we 
had broken his commandment, was willing 
to pass by our transgressions, will be equally 
willing to pass them by after we have thus 
despised the proclamation of his mercy; 
after his forbearance and his long-suffering 
have been resisted; and that scheme of par- 
don, with the weight and the magnitude of 
which angels appear to labour in amaze- 
ment, is received by the very men for whom 
it was devised, as a thing of no estimation ? 
Surely, if there had been justice in the sim- 
ple and immediate punishment of sin — this 
justice will be discharged in still brighter 
manifestation on him, who, in the face of 
such an embassy, holds out in his determi- 
nation to brave it. And, if it be a righteous 
thing in God to avenge every violation of 
his law, how clearly and how irresistibly 
righteous will it appear, when, on the great 
day of his wrath, he taketh vengeance on 
those who have added to the violation of 
his law, the rejection of the Gospel ! 

But what is more than this — God hath 
condescended to make known to us a rea- 
son, for that peculiar way of reconciliation, 
which he hath set before us. It is, that he 
might be just while the justifier of those 
who believe in Jesus. In the dispensation 
of his mercy, he had to provide for the dig- 
nity of his throne. He had to guard the 
stability of his truth and of his righteous- 
ness. He had to pour the lustre of a high 
and awful vindication, over the attributes 
of a nature that is holy and unchangeable. 
He had to make peace on earth and good 
will to men meet, and be at one with glory 



to God in the highest ; and for this purpose 
did the eternal Son pour out his soul an of- 
fering for sin, and by his obedience unto 
death, bring in an everlasting righteousness. 
It is through the channel of this great ex- 
piation that the guilt of every believer is 
washed away; and it is through the im- 
puted merits of him with whom the Father 
was well pleased, that every believer is ad- 
mitted to the rewards of a perfect obedience. 
Conceive any man of this world to reject 
the offers of reward and forgiveness in this 
way, and to look for them in another. Con^ 
ceive him to challenge the direct approba- 
tion of "his Judge, on the measure of his 
own worth, and his own performances, and 
to put away from him that righteousness of 
Christ, in the measure of which there is no 
short coming. Is he not, by this attitude, 
holding out against God, and that too, on a 
question in which the justice of God stands 
committed against him? Is not the poor 
sinner of a day entering into a fearful con- 
troversy, with all the plans, and all the per- 
fections of the Eternal? Might not you 
conceive every attribute of the Divinity, 
gathering into a frown of deeper indigna- 
tion against the daringness of him, who 
thus demands the favour of the Almighty 
or some plea of his own, and resolutely 
declines it on that only plea, under which 
the acceptance of the sinner can be in har- 
mony with the glories of God's holy and 
inviolable character? Surely, if we have 
fallen short of the obedience of his law, and 
so short as to have renounced altogether 
that godliness which imparts to obedience 
its spiritual and substantial quality, — then 
do we aggravate the enormity of our sin, 
by building our hope before God on a foun- 
dation of sin? To sin is to defy God : but 
the very presumption that he will smile 
complacency upon it, involves in it another, 
and a still more deliberate attack upon his 
government ; and all its sanctions, and all 
its severities, are let loose upon us in greater 
force and abundance than before, if we 
either rest upon our own virtue, or mix up 
this polluted ingredient with the righteous- 
ness of Christ, and refuse our single, entire, 
and undivided reliance on him who alone 
has magnified the law and made it honour- 
able. 

But such, if we maybe allowed the expres- 
sion, is the constitution of the Gospel of Jesus 
Christ, that, in proportion to the terror which 
it holds out to those who neglect it, is the 
security that it provides to all who flee for 
refuge to the hope which is set before them. 
Paul understood this well, when, though he 
profited over many of his equals in his own 
nation, — when, though had he measured 
himself by them, he might have gathered 
from the comparison a feeling of proud su- 
periority, — when, though in all that was 
counted righteous among his fellows, he 



VIII."] 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



169 



signalized himself in general estimation, — 
yet he willingly renounced a dependence 
upon all, that he might win Christ, and be 
found in him, not having his own righ- 
teousness, which was of the law, but that 
righteousness which is through the faith of 
Christ, even the righteousness which is of 
God by faith. He felt the force of the al- 
ternative, between the former and the latter 
righteousness. He knew that the one ad- 
mitted of no measurement with the other ; 
and that whatever appearance of worth it 
had in the eyes of men, when brought to 
their relative and earthly standard, it was 
reduced to nothing, and worse than nothing, 
when brought to the standard of Heaven's 
holy and unalterable law. Jesus Christ has 
in our nature fulfilled this law ; and it is in 
the righteousness which he thus wrought, 
that we are invited to stand before God. 
You do not then take in a full impression 
of Gospel security, if you only believe that 
God is merciful, and has forgiven you. You 
are called farther to believe, that God is 
righteous, and has justified you. You have 
a warrant to put on the righteousness of 
Christ as a robe and a diadem, and to go 
to the throne of grace with the petition of 
Look upon me in the face of him who hath 
fulfilled all righteousness. You are furnished 
with such a measure of righteousness as 
God can accept, without letting down a 
single attribute which belongs to him. The 
truth, and the justice, and the holiness, 
which stand in such threatening array 
against the sinner who is out of Christ, 
now form into a shield and a hiding-place 
around him. And while he who trusts in 
the general mercy of God does so at the 
expense of his whole character, he who 
trusts in the mercy of God, which hath ap- 
peared unto all men through the Saviour, 
offers in that act of confidence an homage 
to every perfection of the Divinity, and has 
every perfection of the Divinity upon his 
.side. And thus it is, that under the economy 
of redemption, we now read, not merely of 
God being merciful, but of God being just 
and faithful in forgiving our sins, and in 
cleansing us from all our unrighteousness. 

Thus much for what may be called the 
judicial righteousness with which every 
believer is invested by having the merits of 
Christ imputed to him through faith. But 
this faith is something more than a name. 
It takes up a positive residence in the mind 
as a principle. It has locality and opera- 
tion there, and has either no existence at 
all, or by its purifying and reforming in- 
fluence on the holder of it, does it invest 
him also with a personal righteousness. 

Now, to apply the conception of our text 
to this personal righteousness, the first thing 
we would say of it is, that it admits of no 
measurement whatever with the social 
worth, or the moral virtue, or any other of 



the personal accomplishments of character 
which may belong to those who have not 
the faith of the Gospel. Faith accepts of 
the offered reconciliation, and moves away 
from the alienated heart those suspicions, 
and aversions, and fears, which kept man 
asunder from his God. We would not say, 
then, of the personal righteousness of a be- 
liever, that it consisted in a higher degree 
of that virtue which may exist in a lower 
degree with him who is not a believer. It 
consists in the dawn, and the progress, and 
the perfecting of a virtue, which, before he 
was a believer, had no existence whatever. 
It consists in the possession of a character 
of which, previous to his acceptance of 
Christ, he had not the smallest feature of 
reality ; though to the external eye, there 
may have been some features of resem- 
blance. The principle of Christian sancti- 
fication, which, if we were to express it by 
another name, we would call devotedness 
to God, is no more to be found in the un- 
believing world, than the principle of an 
allegiance to their rightful sovereign, is to 
be found among the outcasts of banishment. 
It is not by any stretching out of the mea- 
sure of your former virtues, then, that you 
can attain this principle. There needs to 
be originated within you a new virtue al- 
together. It is not by the fostering of that 
which is old, — it is by the creation of some- 
thing new, that a man comes to have the 
personal righteousness of a disciple of the 
New Testament. It is by giving existence 
to that which formerly had no existence. 
And let us no longer wonder, then, at the 
magnitude of the terms which are employed 
in the Bible, to denote the change, the per- 
sonal change, which in point of character, 
and affection, and principle, takes place on 
all who become meet for the inheritance 
of the saints. It is there called life from 
the dead, and a new birth, and a total reno- 
vation, — all old things are said to be done 
away, and all things to become new. With 
many it is a wonder how a change of such 
totality and of such magnitude, should be 
accounted as indispensable to the good and 
creditable man of society, as the sunken 
profligate. But if the one and the other 
are both dead to a sense of their Lawgiver 
in heaven, — then both need to be made alive 
unto him. With both there must be the 
power and the reality of a spiritual resur- 
rection. And after this great transition has 
been made, it will be found that the virtues 
of the new state, and those of the old state, 
cannot be brought to any common standard 
of measurement at all. The one distances 
the other by a wide and impassable inter- 
val. There is all the difference in point of 
principle between a man of the world and 
a new creature in Christ, that there is be- 
tween him who has the Spirit of God, and 
him who has it not,— and all the difference 



170 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



in point of performance, that there is be- 
tween him who is without Christ, and can 
therefore do nothing, and him who can 
do all things through Christ strengthening 
him. There is a new principle now, which 
formerly had no operation, even that of 
godliness, — and a new influence now, even 
that of the Holy Ghost, given to the prayers 
of the believer; — and under these provi- 
sions will he attain a splendour and an en- 
ergy of character, with which, the better 
and the best of this world can no more be 
brought into comparison, than earth will 
compare with heaven, or the passions and 
the frivolities of time, with the pure ambi- 
tion and the lofty principles of eternity. 

And let it not be said, that the transforma- 
tion of which we are now speaking, in- 
stead of being thus entire and universal, 
consists only with a good man of the world 
in the addition of one virtue, to his previous 
stock of many virtues. We admit that he 
had justice before, and humanity before, 
and courteousness before, and that the god- 
liness which he had not before, is only one 
virtue. But the station which it asserts, 
among the other virtues, is a station of 
supreme authority. It no sooner takes 
its place among them, than it animates 
them all, and subordinates them all. It sends 
forth among them a new and pervading 
quality, which makes them essentially 
different from what they were before. I 
may take daily exercise from a regard to 
my health, and by so doing I may deserve 
the character of a man of prudence ; or I 
may take daily exercise apart from this 
consideration altogether, and because it is 
the accidental wish of my parents that I 
should do so ; and thus may I deserve the 
character of a man of filial piety. The ex- 
ternal habit is the same ; but under the one 
principle, the moral character of this habit 
is totally and essentially different from 
what it is under the other principle. Yet 
the difference here, is, most assuredly, not 
greater than is the difference between the 
justice of a good man of society, and the 
justice of a Christian disciple. In the 
former case, it is done unto others, or done 
unto himself. In the latter case, it is done 
unto Cod. The frame-work of his outer 
doings is animated by another spirit alto- 
gether. There is the breath of another life 
in it. The inscription of Holiness to God 
stands engraven on the action of the be- 
liever ; and if this character of holiness be 
utterly effaced from the corresponding 
action of the good man of society, then, 
surely, in character, in worth, in spiritual 
and intelligent estimation, mere is the ut- 
most possible diversity between the two 
actions, So that, should the most upright 
and amiable man upon earth embrace the 
Gospel faith, and become the subject of the 
Gospel regeneration, — it is true of him, too, 



that all old things are done away, and that 
all things have become new. 

Thus it is, that while none of the Christian 
virtues can be made to come into measure- 
ment with any of what may be called the 
constituti nal virtues, in respect of their 
principle, because the principle of the one 
set differs from that of the other set, in kind 
as well as in degree, yet there are certain 
corresponding virtues in each of the classes, 
which might be brought together into mea- 
surement, in respect of visible and external 
performance. And it is a high point of 
obligation with every disciple of the faith, 
so to sustain his part in this competition, 
as to show forth the honour of Christianity ; 
to prove by his own personal history in 
the world, how much the morality of grace 
outstrips the morality of nature ; to evince 
the superior lustre and steadiness of the 
one, when compared with the frail, and 
fluctuating, and desultory character of the 
other; and to make it clear to the eye of 
experience, that it is only under the pecu- 
liar government of the doctrine of Christ, 
that all which is amiable in human worth, 
becomes most lovely, and all which is justly 
held in human admiration, becomes most 
great, and lofty, and venerable. The Bible 
tells us to provide things honest in the sight 
of men, as well as of God. It tells us, that 
upon the person of every Christian, the 
features of excellence should stand so legi- 
bly engraven, that, as a living epistle, he 
might be seen and read of all men. It is 
true, there is much in the character of a 
genuine believer which the world cannot 
see, and cannot sympathize with. There 
is the rapture of faith, when in lively exer- 
cise. There is the ecstacy of devotion. 
There is a calm and settled serenity amid 
all the vicissitudes of life. There is the 
habit of having no confidence in the flesh, 
and of rejoicing in the Lord Jesus. There 
is a holding fast of our hope in the pro- 
mises of the Gospel. There is a cherishing 
of the Spirit of adoption. There is the 
work of a believing fellowship with the 
Father and with the Son. There is a move- 
ment of affection towards the things which 
are above. There is a building up of our- 
selves on our most holy faith. There is a 
praying in the Holy Ghost. There is a 
watching for his influence with all perse- 
verance. In a word, there is all which 
the Christian knows to be real, and which 
the world hates, and denounces as visionary, 
in the secret, but sublime and substantial 
processes of experimental religion. 

But, on the other hand, there is also 
much in the doings of an altogether Chris- 
tian of that palpable virtue which forces 
itself upon general observation ; and he is 
most grievously untrue to his master's 
cause, if he do not, on this ground, so out- 
run the world, as to force from the men of 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



171 



it, an approving testimony. The eye of 
the world cannot enter within the spiritual 
recesses of his heart ; but let him ever re- 
member that it is fastened, and that too 
with keen and scrutinizing jealousy, on the 
path of his visible history. It will ofTer no 
homage to the mere sanctity of his com- 
plexion ; nor, unless there be shed over it 
the expression of what is mild in domestic, 
or honourable in public virtue, will it ever 
look upon him in any other light, than as 
an object of the most unmingled disgust. 
And therefore it is, that he must enter on 
the field of ostensible accomplishment, and 
there bear away the palm of superiority, 
and be the most eminent of his fellows in 
all those recognized virtues, that can bless 
or embellish the condition of society; the 
most untainted in honour, and the most dis- 
interested in justice, and the most alert in 
beneficence, and the most unwearied in all 
these graces, under every discouragement 
and every provocation. 

We have now only time to say, that we 
shall not regret the length of this discourse, 
or even the recurrence of some of its argu- 
ments, if any hearer amongst you, not in 
the faith, be led by it, to withdraw his con- 
fidence from the mere accomplishments 



of nature, — and if any believer amongst 
you be led by it not to despise these accom- 
plishments, but to put them on, and to ani~ 
mate them all with the spirit of religious- 
ness, — if any hearer amongst you, beginning 
to perceive his own nothingness in the sight 
of God, be prompted to inquire, Wherewithal 
shall I appear before him? and not to rest 
from the inquiry, till he flee from his hiding- 
place, to that everlasting righteousness 
which the Saviour hath brought in : and if 
any believer amongst you, rightly dividing 
the word of truth, shall act on the principle, 
that though nothing but the doctrine of 
Christ crucified, can avail him for accept- 
ance with God, yet he is bound to adorn 
this doctrine in all things. And knowing 
that one may acquiesce in the whole of 
such a demonstration, without carrying it 
personally home, we leave off with the sin- 
gle remark, that every conviction not prose- 
cuted, every movement of conscience not 
followed up, every ray of light or of truth 
not turned to individual application, will 
aggravate the reckoning of the great day, — 
and that in proportion to the degree of ur- 
gency which has been brought to bear upon 
you, and been resisted, will be the weight 
and the justness of your final condemnation. 



SERMON IX. 
The Principle of Love to God. 
" Keep yourselves in the love of God." — Jude 21. 



It is not easy to give the definition of a 
term, which is currently and immediately 
understood without one. But, should not 
this ready understanding of the term super- 
sede the definition of it, what can we tell 
of love in the way of explanation, but by a 
substitution of terms, not more simple and 
more intelligible than itself? Can this affec- 
tion of the soul be made clearer to you by 
words, than it is already clear to you by 
your own consciousness? Are we to at- 
tempt the elucidation of a term, which, 
without any feeling of darkness or of mys- 
tery, you make familiar use of every day ? 
You say with the utmost promptitude, and 
you have just as ready an apprehension of 
the meaning of what you say, that I love 
this man, and bear a still higher regard to 
another, but have my chief and my best 
liking directed to a third. We will not at- 
tempt to go in search of a more luminous 
or expressive term, for this simple affection, 
than the one that is commonly employed. 
But it is a different thing to throw light upon 
the workings of this affection, — to point 
your attention to the objects on which it 



rests, and finds a complacent gratification, — 
and to assign the circumstances, which are 
either favourable or unfavourable to its ex- 
citement. All this may call forth an exer- 
cise of discrimination. But instead of dwell- 
ing any more on the significancy of the 
term love, which is the term of my text, let 
us forthwith take it unto use, and be confi- 
dent that, in itself, it carries no ambiguity 
along with it. 

The term love, indeed, admits of a real 
and intelligible application to inanimate ob- 
jects. There is a beauty in sights, and a 
beauty in sounds, and I may bear a posi- 
tive love to the mute and unconscious in- 
dividuals in which this beauty hath taken 
up its residence. I may love a flower, or 
a murmuring stream, or a sunny bank, or a 
humble cottage peeping forth from its con- 
cealment, — or in fine, a whole landscape 
may teem with such varied graces, that I 
may say of it, this is the scene I most love 
to behold, this is the prospect over which 
my eye and my imagination most fondly 
expatiate. 

The term love admits of an equally real, 



172 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



and equally intelligible application to our 
fellow-men. They, too, are the frequent 
and familiar objects of this affection, and 
they often are so, because they possess cer- 
tain accomplishments of person and of cha- 
racter, by which it is excited. I love the 
man whose every glance speaks an effusive 
cordiality towards those who are around 
him. I love the man whose heart and 
whose hand are ever open to the represen- 
tations of distress. I love the man who 
possesses such a softness of nature, that the 
imploring look of a brother in want, or of 
a brother in pain, disarms him of all his 
selfishness, and draws him out to some large 
and willing surrender of generosity. I love 
the man who carries on his aspect, not 
merely the expression of worth, but of 
worth maintained in the exercise of all its 
graces, under every variety of temptation 
and discouragement ; who, in the midst of 
calumny, can act the warm and enlightened 
philanthropist ; who, when beset with many 
provocations, can weather them all in calm 
and settled endurance; who can be kind 
even to the unthankful and the evil ; and 
who, if he possess the awful virtues of truth 
and of justice, only heightens our attach- 
ment the more, that he possesses goodness, 
and tenderness, and benignity along with 
them. 

Now, we would have you to advert to 
one capital distinction between the former 
and the latter class of objects. The inani- 
mate reflect no love upon us back again. 
They do not single out any one of their ad- 
mirers, and, by an act of preference, either 
minister to his selfish appetite for esteem, 
or minister to his selfish appetite for enjoy- 
ment, by affording to him a larger share 
than to others, of their presence, and of all 
the delights which their presence inspires. 
They remain motionless in their places, 
without will and without sensibility; and 
the homage they receive, is from the dis- 
interested affection which men bear to their 
loveliness. They are loved, and that purely, 
because they are lovely. There is no mix- 
ture of selfishness in the affection that is of- 
fered to them. They do not put on a 
sweeter smile to one man than to another ; 
but all the features of that beauty in which 
they are arrayed, stand inflexibly the same 
to every beholder ; and he, without any con- 
scious mingling whatever of self-love, in 
the emotion with which he gazes at the 
charms of some external scenery, is actu- 
ated by a love towards it, which rests and 
which terminates on the objects that he is 
employed in contemplating. 

But this is not always the case when our 
fellow men are objects of this affection. I 
should love cordiality, and benevolence, and 
compassion for their own sakes; but let 
your own experience tell how far more 
•sweetly and more intensely the love is felt, 



when this cordiality is turned, in one stream 
of kindliness, towards myself; when the 
eye of friendship has singled out me, and 
looks at me with a peculiar graciousness ; 
when the man of tenderness has pointed 
his way to the abode of my suffering family, 
and there shed in secrecy over them his 
liberalities, and his tears ; when he has for- 
given me the debt that I was unable to dis- 
charge ; and when, oppressed as I am, by the 
consciousness of having injured or reviled 
him, he has nobly forgotten or overlooked 
the whole provocation, and persists in a re- 
gard that knows no abatement, in a well- 
doing that is never weary 

There is an element, then, in the love I 
bear to a fellow man, which does not exist 
in the love I bear to an inanimate object ; 
and which may serve, perhaps, to darken 
the character of the affection I feel towards 
the former. We most readily concede it, 
that the love of another, on account of the 
virtues which adorn him, changes its moral 
character altogether, if it be a love to him, 
solely on account of the benefit which I de- 
rive from the exercise of these virtues. I 
should love compassion on its own account, 
as well as on the account that it is I who 
have been the object of it. I should love 
justice on its own account, as well as on 
the account that my grievances have been 
redressed by the dispensation of it. On 
looking at goodness, I should feel an affec- 
tion resting on this object, and finding there 
its full and its terminating gratification; 
and that, though I had never stood in the 
way of any one of its beneficent operations. 

How is it, then, that the special direction 
of a moral virtue in another, towards the 
object of my personal benefit, operates in 
enhancing both the sensation which it im- 
parts to my heart, and the estimate which I 
form of it ? What is the peculiar qnali ty com- 
municated to my admiration of another's 
friendship, and another's goodness, by the 
circumstance of myself being the individual 
towards whom that friendship is cherished, 
and in favour of whom, that goodness puts 
itself forth into active exertion? At the 
sight of a benevolent man, there arises in 
my bosom an instantaneous homage of re- 
gard and of reverence; — but should that 
homage take a pointed direction towards 
myself, — should it realize its fruits on the 
comfort, and the security of my own per- 
son, — should it be employed in gladdening 
my home, and spreading enjoyment over 
my family, oppressed with want and pining 
in sickness, there is, you will allow, by 
these circumstances, a heightening of the 
love and the admiration that I formerly 
rendered him. And, we should like to know 
what is the precise character of the addition 
that has thus been given to my regard for 
the virtue of benevolence. We should like 
to know, if it be altogether a pure and a 



IX.] 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



173 



praise-worthy accession that has thus come 
upon the sentiment with which I now look 
at my benefactor, — or, if, by contracting 
any taint of selfishness, it has lost the high 
rank that formerly belonged to it, as a dis- 
interested affection, towards the goodness 
which beautifies and adorns his character. 

There is one way, however, in which 
this special direction of a moral virtue to- 
wards my particular interest, may increase 
my affection for it, and without changing 
the moral character of my affection. It 
gives me a nearer view of the virtue in 
question. It is tine, that the virtue may just 
be as lovely when exercised in behalf of my 
neighbour, as when exercised in behalf of 
myself. But, in the former case, I am not 
an eye-witness to the display and the evo- 
lution of its loveliness. I am a limited be- 
ing, who cannot take in so full and so dis- 
tinct an impression of the character of what 
is distant, as of the character of what is 
immediately beside me. It is true, that all 
the circumstances may be reported. But 
you know very well, that a much livelier 
representation is obtained of any object, 
by the seeing of it, than by the hearing of 
it. To be told of kindness, does not bring 
this attribute of character so forcibly, or so 
clearly home to my observ ation, as to re- 
ceive a visit from kindness, and to take it 
by the hand, and to see its benignant mien, 
and to hear its gentle and complacent voice, 
and to witness the solicitude of its inquiries, 
and to behold its tender and honest anxiety 
for my interest, and to share daily and 
weekly in the liberalities which it has be- 
stowed upon me. When all this goes on 
around my own person, and within the 
limits of my own dwelling-place, it is very 
true that seff^ is gratified, and that this cir- 
cumstance may give rise to sensations, 
which are altogether distinct from the love 
I bear to moral worth, or to moral excel- 
lence. But this does not hinder, that along 
with these sensations, a disinterested love 
for the moral virtue of which I have been 
the object, ma}*, at the same time, have its 
room and its residence within my bosom. 
I may love goodness more than ever, on 
its own account, since it has taken its spe- ] 
cific way to my habitation, and that, just 
because I have obtained a nearer acquaint- 
ance with it. I may love it better, because 
I know it better. My affection for it may 
have become more intense, and more de- 
voted than before, because its beauty is now 
more fully unfolded to the eye of my ob- 
servation "than before. And thus, while we 
admit that the goodness of which I am the 
object, originates within me certain feelings 
different in kind from that which is excited 
by goodness in the general, yet it may 
heighten the degree of this latter feeling 
also. It may kindle or augment the love I 
bear to moral virtue in itself; or, in other 



I words, it may enhance my affection for 
worth, without any change whatever in 
; the moral character of that affection. 

Now, before we proceed to consider those 
peculiar emotions which are excited within 
me, by being the individual, in whose fa- 
vour certain virtues are exercised, and which 
emotions are, all of them, different in kind 
from the affection that I bear for these vir- 
tues, — let us farther observe, that the term 
love, when applied to sentient beings con- 
sidered as the object of it, may denote an 
affection, different in the principle of its ex- 
citement, from any that we have been yet 
considering. My love to another may lie 
in the liking I have for the moral qualities 
which belong to him ; and this, by way of 
distinctness, may be called the love of moral 
esteem or approbation. Or, my love to an- 
other may consist in the desire I have for 
his happiness : and this may be called the 
love of kindness. These two are often al- 
lied to each other in fact, but there is a real 
difference in their nature. The love of 
kindness which I bear to -my infant child 
may have no reference to its moral qualities 
whatever. This love finds its terminating 
gratification in obtaining, for the object of 
it. exemption from pain, or in ministering 
to its enjoyments. It is very true, that the 
sight of what is odious or revolting in the 
character of another, tends, in point of fact, 
to dissipate all the love of kindness I may 
have ever borne to him. But it does not 
always do so, and one instance of this 
proves a real distinction, in point of nature, 
between the love of kindness, and the love 
of moral esteem. And the highest and 
most affecting instance which can be given 
of this distinction, is in the love wherewith 
God hath loved the world ; is in that kind- 
ness towards us, through Christ Jesus, 
which he hath made known to men in the 
Gospe ; is in that longing regard to his 
fallen creatures, whereby he was not will- 
ing that any should perish, but rather that 
all should live. There was the love of kind- 
ness standing out, in marked and separate 
display, from the love of moral esteem ; for, 
alas ! in the degraded race of mankind, there 
was not one quality which could call forth 
such an affection in the breast of the God- 
head. It was, when we were hateful to him 
in character, that in person and in interest 
we were the objects of his most unbounded 
tenderness. It was, when we were enemies 
by wicked works, that God looked on with 
pity, and stretched forth, to his guilt}* chil- 
dren, the arms of offered reconciliation. It 
was when we had wandered far in the paths 
of worthlessness and alienation, that he de- 
vised a message of love, and sent his Son 
into our world, to seek and to save lis. 

And this, by the way, may serve to il- 
lustrate the kind of love which we are re- 
quired to bear to our enemies. We are re- 



174 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



quired to love them, in the same way in 
which God loves his enemies. A conscien- 
tious man will feel oppressed by the diffi- 
culty of such a precept, if he try to put it 
into obedience, by loving those who have of- 
fended, with the same feeling of complacency 
with which he loves those who have be- 
friended him. But the truth is, that the love 
of moral esteem often enters, as a principal 
ingredient, into the love of complacency; 
and we are not required, by our imitation 
of the Godhead, to entertain any such affec- 
tion for the depraved and the worthless. It 
is enough, that we cherish towards them in 
our hearts the love of kindness ; and this 
will be felt a far more practicable achieve- 
ment, than to force up the love of compla- 
cency into a bosom, revolted by the aspect 
of treachery, or dishonesty, or unprincipled 
selfishness. There is no possible motive to 
excite the latter affection. There may be a 
thousand to excite the former : and we have 
only to look to the unhappy man in all his 
prospects, and in all his relations ; we have 
only to pity his delusions, and to view him 
as the napless victim of a sad and ruin- 
ous infatuation ; we have only to carry our 
eye onwards to the agonies of that death, 
which will shortly lay hold of him, and to 
compute the horrors of that eternity, which, 
if not recovered from the error of his way, 
he is about to enter ; we have only, in a 
word, to put forth an exercise of faith in 
certain near and impending realities, the 
evidence of whi-ch is altogether resistless, in 
order to summon up such motives, and such 
considerations, as may cause the compassion 
of our nature to predominate over the re- 
sentment of our nat ure : and as will assure 
to a believer the victory over such urgen- 
cies of his constitution as, to the unrenewed 
heart, are utterly unconquerable. 

But to resume our argument, let it be ob- 
served that the kindness of God is one of the 
loveliest, and most estimable of the attri- 
butes which belong to him. It is a bright 
feature in that assemblage of excellencies, 
which enter into the character of the God- 
head : and, as such, independently altogether 
of this kindness being exercised upon me, I 
should offer to it the homage of my moral 
approbation. But, should I be the special 
and the signalized object of his kindness, 
there is another sentiment towards God, be- 
side the love of moral esteem, that ought to 
be formed within me by that circumstance, 
and which, in the business of reasoning, 
should be kept apart from it. There is the 
love of gratitude. These often go together, 
and may be felt simultaneously, towards 
the one being we are employed in contem- 
plating. But they are just as distinct, each 
from the other, as is the love of moral es- 
teem from the love of kindness. We trust 
that we have already convinced you, that 
God feels towards us, his inferiors, the love 



of kindness, when he cannot, from the na- 
ture of the object, feel for us the slightest 
degree of the love of moral esteem. In the 
same manner may we feel, we are not say- 
ing towards God, but towards an earthly 
benefactor, the love of gratitude, when, from 
the nature of the object we are employed 
in contemplating, there is much to impair 
within us the love of moral esteem, or to 
extinguish it altogether. Is it not most na- 
tural to say of the man, who has been per- 
sonally benevolent to myself, and who has, 
at the same time, disgraced himself, by his 
vices, that, bad as he is, he has been at all 
times remarkably kind to me, and felt many 
a movement of friendship towards my per- 
son, and done many a deed of important 
service to my family, and that I, at least, 
owe him a gratitude for all this, — that I, at 
least, should be longer than others, of dis- 
missing from my bosom the last remainder 
of cordiality towards him, — that if, infamy 
and poverty have followed, in the career of 
his wickedness, and he have become an 
outcast from the attentions of other men, it 
is not for me to spurn him instantly from 
my door, — or, in the face of my particular 
recollections, to look un pitying and un- 
moved, at the wretchedness into which he 
has fallen. 

It is the more necessary, to distinguish 
the love of gratitude from the love of moral 
esteem, that each of these affections may 
be excited simultaneously within me, by one 
act or by one exhibition of himself, on the 
part of the Deity. Let me be made to un- 
derstand, that God has passed by my trans- 
gression, and generously admitted me into 
the privileges and the rewards of obe- 
dience, — I see in this a tenderness, and a 
mercy, and a love, for his creatures, which, 
if blended at the same time with all that is 
high and honourable in the more august 
attributes of his nature, have the effect of 
presenting him to my mind, and of draw- 
ing out my heart in moral regard to him, 
as a most amiable and estimable object of 
contemplation. But besides this, there is a 
peculiar love of gratitude, excited by the 
consideration that I am the object of this 
benignity, — that I am one of the creatures 
to whom he has directed this peculiar re- 
gard, — that he has singled out me, and con- 
ceived a gracious purpose towards me, and 
in the execution of this purpose is lavishing 
upon my person, the blessings of a father's 
care, and a father's tenderness. Both the 
love of moral esteem, and the love of grati- 
tude, may thus be in contemporaneous op- 
eration within me; and it will be seen to 
accomplish a practical, as well as a meta- 
physical purpose, to keep the one apart 
from the other, in the view of the mind, 
when love towards God is the topic of spec- 
ulation which engages it. 

But, farther, let it be understood, that the 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



175 



love of gratitude differs from the love of 
moral esteem, not merely in the cause which 
immediately originates it, but also in the 
object, in which it finds its rest and its grati- 
fication. It is the kindness of another being 
to myself, which originates within me the 
'ove of gratitude towards him ; and it is the 
view of what is morally estimable in this 
being, that originates within me all the love 
of moral esteem, that I entertain for him. 
There is a real distinction of cause between 
these two affections, and there is also between 
them a real distinction of object. The love 
of moral esteem finds its complacent grati- 
fication, in the act of dwelling contempla- 
tively on that Being, by whom it is excited ; 
just as a tasteful enthusiast inhales delight 
from the act of gazing on the charms of 
some external scenery. The pleasure he 
receives, emanates directly upon his mind, 
from the forms of beauty and of loveliness, 
which are around him. And if, instead of 
a taste for the beauties of nature, there ex- 
ists within him, a taste for the beauties of 
holiness, then will he love the Being, who 
presents to the eye of his contemplation the 
fullest assemblage of them, and his taste 
will find its complacent gratification in 
dwelling upon him, whether as an object of 
thought, or as an object of perception. " One 
thing have I desired," says the Psalmist, 
" that I may dwell in the house of the Lord 
all the days of my life, to behold the beauty 
of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple." 
Now, the love of gratitude is distinct from 
this in its object. It is excited by the love 
of kindness; and the feeling which is thus 
excited, is just a feeling of kindness back 
again. It is kindness begetting kindness. 
The language of this affection is, " What 
shall I render unto the Lord for all his bene- 
fits ?" He has done what is pleasing and 
gratifying to me. What shall I do to please, 
and to gratify him ? The love of gratitude 
seeks for answers to this question, and finds 
its delight in acting upon them, and whether 
the answer be, — this is the will of God, even 
your sanctification, — or, with the sacrifices 
of liberality God is well pleased, — or, obe- 
dience to parents is well pleasing in his 
sight, — these all point out so many lines of 
conduct, to which the impulse of the love 
of gratitude would carry us, and attest this 
to be the love of God, — that ye keep his 
commandments. 

And, indeed, when the same Being com- 
bines, in his own person, that which ought 
to excite the love of moral esteem, with 
that which ought to excite the love of grati- 
tude, — the two ingredients, enter with a 
mingled but harmonious concurrence, into 
the exercise of one compound affection. It 
is true, that the more appropriate offering 
of the former is the offering of praise, — 
just as when one looks to the beauties of 
nature, he breaks out into a rapturous ac- 



knowledgment of them ; and so it may be, 
when one looks to the venerable, and the 
lovely in the character of God. The more 
appropriate offering of the latter, is the offer- 
ing of thanksgiving, or of such services as 
are fitted to please, and to gratify a bene- 
factor. But still it may be observed, how 
each of these simple affections tends to ex- 
press itself, by the very act which more 
characteristically marks the workings of 
the other ; or, how the more appropriate 
offering of the first of them, may be prompt- 
ed under the impulse, and movement of 
the second of them, and conversely. For, 
if I love God because of his perfections, 
what principle can more powerfully or more 
directly lead to the imitation of them ? — 
which is the very service that he requires, 
and the very offering that he is most 
pleased with. And, if I love God because 
of his goodness to me, what is more fitted 
to prompt my every exertion, in the way 
of spreading the honours of his character 
and of his name among my fellows, — 
and, for this purpose, to magnify in their 
hearing the glories and the attributes of his 
nature ? It is thus that the voice of praise 
and the voice of gratitude may enter into 
one song of adoration ; and that whilst the 
Psalmist, at one time, gives thanks to God 
at the remembrance of his holiness, he. at 
another, pours forth praise at the remem- 
brance of his mercies. 

To have the love of gratitude towards 
God, it is essential that we know and be- 
lieve his love of kindness towards us. To 
have the love of moral esteem towards him, 
it is essential that the loveliness of his char- 
acter be in the eye of the mind : or, in other 
words, that the mind keep itself in steady 
and believing contemplation of the excel- 
lencies which belong to him. The view 
that we have of God, is just as much in the 
order of precedency to the affection that we 
entertain for him, as any two successive 
steps can be, in any of the processes of our 
mental constitution. To obtain the intro- 
duction of love into the heart, there must, 
as a preparatory circumstance, be the in- 
troduction of knowledge into the under- 
standing; or, as we can never be said to 
know what we do not believe — ere we have 
love, we must have faith; and, accordingly, in 
the passage from which our text is extracted, 
do we perceive the one pointed to, as the 
instrument for the production of the other. 
" Keep yourselves in the love of God, build- 
ing yourselves up on your most holy faith." 

And here, it ought to be remarked, that a 
man may experience a mental process, and 
yet have no taste or no understanding for 
the explanation of it. The simple truths of 
the Gospel, may enter with acceptance into 
the mind of a peasant, and there work all 
the proper influences on his heart and cha- 
racter, which the Bible ascribes to them: and 



170 



DEPRAVITY OF 



HUMAN NATURE. 



I SERTrt 



yet he may be utterly incapable of tracing 
that series of inward movements, by which 
he is carried onward from a belief in the 
truth, to all those moral and affectionate re- 
gards, which mark a genuine disciple of the 
truth. He may be the actual subject of these 
movements, though altogether unable to fol- 
low or to analyze them. This is not pecu- 
liar to the judgments or the feelings of 
Christianity. In the matters of ordinary 
life, a man may judge sagaciously, and feel 
correctly while ardently ; — and experience, 
in right and natural order, the play of his 
various faculties, without having it at all in 
his power, either to frame or to follow a true 



theory of his faculties. It is well, that the 
simple preaching of the Gospel has its right 
practical operation on men, who make no 
attempt whatever, to comprehend the meta- 
physics of the operation. But, if ever 
metaphysics be employed to darken the 
freeness of the Gospel offer, or to dethrone 
faith from the supremacy which belongs to 
it, or to forbid the approaches of those 
whom God has not forbidden ; then must it 
be met upon its own ground, and the real 
character of our beneficent religion be as- 
serted, amid the attempts of those who have 
in any way obscured or injured it by their 
illustrations. 



SERMON X. 



Gratitude, not a sordid Affection. 

" We love him, because he first loved us." — 1 John iv. 19. 



Some theologians have exacted from an 
inquirer, at the very outset of his conver- 
sion, that he should carry in his heart what 
they call the disinterested love of God. 
They have set him on the most painful ef- 
forts to acquire this affection, — and that too, 
before he was in circumstances in which it 
was at all possible to entertain it. They 
have led him to view with suspicion the 
love of gratitude, as having in it a taint of 
selfishness. They are for having him to 
love God, and that on the single ground 
that he is lovely, without any reference to 
his own comfort, or even to his own safety. 
Strange demand which they make on a 
sentient being, that even amidst the fears 
and the images of destruction, he should 
find room in his heart for the love of com- 
placency! and equally strange demand to 
make on a sinful being, that ere he admit 
such a sense of reconciliation into his bo- 
som, as will instantly call forth a grateful 
regard to him who has conferred it, he 
must view God with a disinterested affec- 
tion ; that from the deep and helpless abyss 
of his depravity, he must find, unaided, his 
ascending way to the purest and the sub- 
limest emotion of moral nature ; that ere 
he is delivered from fear he must love, even 
though it be said of love, that it casteth out 
fear ; and that ere he is placed on the van- 
tage ground of the peace of the Gospel, he 
must realize on his character, one of the 
most exalted of its perfections. 

The effect of all this on many an anxious 
seeker after rest, has been most discouraging. 
With the stigma that has been affixed to the 
love of gratitude, they have been positively 
apprehensive of the inroads of this affec- 
tion, and have studiously averted the eye of 



their contemplation from the objects which 
are fitted to inspire it. In other words, 
they have hesitated to entertain the free of- 
fers of salvation, and misinterpreted all the 
tokens of an embassy, which has proclaim- 
ed peace on earth and good will to men. 
They think that all which they can possi- 
bly gather, in the way of affection, from 
such a contemplation, is the love of grati- 
tude ; and that gratitude is selfishness ; and 
that selfishness is not a gracious affection ; 
and that ere they be surely and soundly 
converted, the love they bear to God must 
be of a totally disinterested character; and 
thus through another medium than that of 
a free and gratuitous dispensation of kind- 
ness, do they strive, by a misunderstood 
gospel, or without the gospel altogether,' to 
reach a peace and a preparation which we 
fear, in their way of it, is to sinners utterly 
unattainable. 

In the progress of this discourse let us 
endeavour, in the first place, to rescue the 
love of gratitude from the imputations 
which have been preferred against it, — and 
secondly, to assign to the love of kindness 
manifested to the world in the gospel, and 
to the faith by which that love is made to 
arise in the heart, the place and the pre- 
eminence which belong to them. 

I. The proper object of the love of grati- 
tude, is the being who has exercised towards 
me the love of kindness ; and this is more 
correct than to say, that the proper object 
of this affection is the being who has con- 
ferred benefits upon me. I can conceive 
another to load me with benefactions, and 
at the same time, to evince that kindness 
towards me was not the principle which 
impelled him. It may be done reluctantly 



X.] 



DEPRAVITY OF 



HUMAN NATURE. 



177 



at the bidding of another, or it may be done 
to serve some interested purpose, or it may 
be done to parade his generosity before the 
eye of the public. If it be not done from 
a real principle of kindness to myself, I may 
take his gifts, and I may find enjoyment in 
the use of them ; but I feel no gratitude to- 
wards the dispenser of them. Unless I see 
his kindness in them, I will not be grateful. 
It is true, that, in point of fact, gratitude 
often springs from the rendering of a bene- 
fit ; but, lest we should confound things 
which are different, let it be well observed, 
that this is only when the benefit serves as 
the indication of a kind purpose, or of a 
kind affection, on the part of him who hath 
granted it. And this may be proved, not 
merely by showing, that there may be no 
gratitude where there is a benefit, but also 
by showing, that there may be gratitude 
where there is no material benefit what- 
ever. Just let the naked principle of kind- 
ness discover itself, and though it have nei- 
ther the power, nor the opportunity of 
coming forth with the dispensation of any 
service, it is striking to observe, how, upon 
the bare existence of this affection being 
known, it is met by a grateful feeling, on 
the part of him to whom it is directed; and 
what mighty augmentations may be given 
in this way, to the stock of enjoyment, and 
that, by the mere reciprocation of kindness 
begetting kindness. For, to send the expres- 
sion of this kindness into another's bosom, 
it is not always necessary to do it on the 
vehicle of positive donation. It may be 
conveyed by a look of benevolence; and 
thus it is, that by the mere feeling of cor- 
diality, a tide of happiness may be made to 
circulate throughout all the individuals of 
an assembled company. Or it may be done 
by a very slight and passing attention, and 
thus it is, that the cheap services of courte- 
ousness, may spread such a charm over the 
face of a neighbourhood. Or it may be done 
by the very poorest member of human so- 
ciety; and thus it is, that the ready and sin- 
cere homage of attachment from such a man, 
may beam a truer felicity upon me, and 
call forth a livelier gratitude to him who 
has conferred it, than some splendid act of 
patronage on the part of a superior. Or it 
may be done by a Christian visiter in some 
of the humblest of our city lanes, who, without 
one penny to bestow on the children of want, 
may spread among them the simple con- 
viction of her good will, and call down upon 
her person the voice of thankfulness and of 
blessing from all their habitations. And 
thus it is, that by good will creating good 
will, a pure and gladdening influence will 
at length go abroad over the face of our 
world, and mankind will be made to know 
the might and the mystery of that tie which 
is to bind them together into one family, 
and they will rejoice in the power of that 
Z 



secret charm which so heightens and so mul- 
tiplies the pleasure of all the members of it ; 
and, when transported from earth to heaven, 
they will still feel, that while it is to the 
benefits which God hath conferred that they 
owe the possession and all the privileges of 
existence; it is to a sense of the love which 
prompted these benefits, that they will owe 
the ecstatic charm of their immortality. It 
is the beaming kindness of God upon them, 
that will put their souls into the liveliest 
transports of gratitude and joy ; and it is the 
reciprocation of this kindness on the part of 
those, who, while they have fellowship with 
the Father, and with the Son, have fellow- 
ship also with one another, that will cause the 
joy of heaven to be full. 

The distinction which we are now ad- 
verting to, is something more, than a mere 
shadowy refinement of speculation. It may 
be realized on the most trodden and ordi- 
nary path of human experience, and is, in 
fact, one of the most familiar exhibitions of 
genuine and unsophisticated nature in those 
ranks of society where refinement is un- 
known. Let one man go over any given 
district of the city fully fraught with the 
materiel of benevolence; let him be the 
agent of some munificent subscription, and 
with nothing in his heart but just such 
affections, and such jealousies, and such 
thoughtful anxieties, about a right and equi- 
table division, as belong to the general spirit 
of his office ; let him leave some substantial 
deposit with each of the families ; and then 
compute, if he can, the quantity of gratitude 
which he carries away with him. It were 
a most unkind reflection on the lower orders, 
and not more unkind than untrue, to deny 
that there will be the mingling of some 
gratitude, along with the clamour, and the 
envy, and the discontent, which are ever sure 
to follow in the train of such a ministration. 
It is not to discredit the poor, that we intro- 
duce our present observation ; but to bring 
out, if possible, into broad and luminous ex- 
hibition, one of the finest sensibilities which 
adorns them. It is to let you know the 
high cast of character of which they are 
capable; and how the glow of pleasure 
which arises in their bosoms, when the eye 
of simple affection beams upon their per- 
sons, or upon their habitations, may not have 
one single taint of sordidness to debase it. 
And to prove this, just let another man go 
over the same district, and in the train of 
the former visitation ; conceive him unbacked 
by any public institution, to have nothing in 
his hand that might not be absorbed by the 
needs of a single family, but that, utterly 
destitute as he is of the materiel, he has a 
heart charged and overflowing with the 
whole morale of benevolence. Just let him 
go forth among the people, without one 
other recommendation than an honest, and 
undissembled good will to them; and let 



178 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



this good will manifest its existence, in any 
one of the thousand ways, by which it may 
be authenticated ; and whether it be by the 
cordiality of his manners, or by his sympa- 
thy with their griefs, or by the nameless at- 
tentions and offices of civility, or by the 
higher aim of that kindness which points to 
the welfare of their immortality, and evinces 
its reality by its ready and unwearied ser- 
vices among the young, or the sick, or the 
dying ; just let them be satisfied of the one 
fact, that he is their friend, and that all their 
joys and all their sorrows are his own; he 
may be struggling with hardships and ne- 
cessities as the poorest of them all ; but poor 
as they are, they know what is in his heart, 
and well do they know how to value it ; and 
from the voice of welcome, which meets 
him in the very humblest of their tenements; 
and from the smile of that heartfelt enjoy- 
ment, which his presence is ever sure to 
awaken, and from the influence of gracious- 
ness which he carries along with him into 
every house, and by which he lights up an 
honest emotion of thankfulness in the bosom 
of every family, may we gather the exist- 
ence of a power, which worth alone, and 
without the accompaniment of wealth, can 
bestow ; a power to sweeten and subdue, 
and tranquillize, which no money can pur- 
chase, which no patronage can create. 

It will be readily acknowledged by all, 
that the most precious object in the manage- 
ment of a town, is to establish the reign of 
happiness and contentment among those 
who live in it. And it is interesting to mark 
the operations of those, who, without advert- 
ing to the principle that I now insist upon, 
think that all is to be achieved by the beg- 
garly elements which enter into the arith- 
metic of ordinary business ; who rear their 
goodly scheme upon the basis of sums and 
computations ; and think that by an over- 
whelming discharge of the materiel of be- 
nevolence, they will reach an accomplish- 
ment which the morale of benevolence 
alone is equal to. We are sure that it is not 
to mortify our men of grave, and official, 
and calculating experience, that we tell 
them, how, with all their strength, and all 
their sagacity, they have only given their 
money for that which is not meat, and 
their labour for that which satisfteth not. 
It is to illustrate a principle of our common 
nature, so obvious, that to be recognized, it 
needs only to be spoken of. And it were 
well, if in so doing their thoughts could be 
led to the instrumentality of this principle, 
as the only wa}', in which they can redeem 
the failures of their by-gone experience; if 
they could be convinced, that the agents of 
a zealous and affectionate Christianity can 
alone do what all the influence of municipal 
weight and municipal wisdom cannot do ; 
if they coula be taught what the ministra- 
tions are, by which a pure and a respond- 



ing gratitude, may be made to circulate 
throughout all our dwelling-places; if, in a 
word, while they profess to serve the pool, 
they could be led to respect the poor, to do 
homage to that fineness of moral tempera- 
ment which belongs to them, and which 
hitherto seems to have escaped, altogether, 
the eye of civil or political superintendence : 
and they may rest assured, that let them 
give as much in the shape of munificence 
as they will, if they add not the k>ve to the 
liberality of the Gospel, they will never 
soften one feature of unkindness, or chase 
away one exasperated feeling, from the 
hearts of a neglected population. 

But, beside the degree of purity in which 
this principle may exist among the most 
destitute of our species, it is also of import- 
ance to mark the degree of strength, in 
which it actually exists among the most de- 
praved of our species. And, on this subject, 
do we think that the venerable Howard 
has bequeathed to us a most striking and 
valuable observation. You know the his- 
tory of this man's enterprises; how his do- 
ings, and his observations, were among the 
veriest outcasts of humanity, — how he de- 
scended into prison houses, and there made 
himself familiar with all that could most, 
revolt or terrify, in the exhibition of oui 
fallen nature; how, for this purpose, he 
made the tour of Europe ; but instead of 
walking in the footsteps of other travellers, 
he toiled his painful and persevering way 
through these receptacles of worthlessness ; 
— and, sound experimentalist as he was, did 
he treasure up the phenomena of our na- 
ture, throughout all the stages of misfor- 
tune, or depravity. We may well conceive 
the scenes of moral desolation that would 
often meet his eye ; and that, as he looked 
to the hard, and dauntless, and defying 
aspect of criminality before him, he would 
sicken in despair of ever finding one rem- 
nant of a purer and better principle, by 
which he might lay hold of these unhappy 
men, and convert them into the willing and 
the consenting agents of their own amelio- 
ration. And yet such a principle he found, 
and found it, as he tells us, after years of 
intercourse, as the fruit of his greater ex- 
perience, and his longer observation ; and 
gives, as the result of it, that convicts, and 
that among the most desperate of them all, 
are not ungovernable, and that there is a 
way of managing even them, and that the 
way is, without relaxing, in one iota, from 
the steadiness of a calm and resolute disci- 
pline, to treat them with tenderness,' and to 
show them that you have humanity ; and 
thus a principle, of itself so beautiful, that 
to expatiate upon it, gives in the eyes of 
some, an air of fantastic declamation to our 
argument, is actually deponed to, by an aged 
and most sagacious observer. It is the very 
principle of our text ; and it would appear 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



179 



that it keeps a lingering hold of our nature, 
even in the last and lowest degree of human 
wickedness ; and that when abandoned by 
every other principle, this may still be de- 
tected, — that even among the most hack- 
neyed and most hardened of malefactors 
there is still about them a softer part which 
will give way to the demonstrations of ten- 
derness : that this one ingredient of a bet- 
ter character is still found to survive the 
dissipation of all the others, — that, fallen as 
a brother may be, from the moralities which 
at one time adorned him, the manifested 
good-will of his fellow-man still carries a 
charm and an influence along with it ; and 
that, therefore, there lies in this, an opera- 
tion which, as no poverty can vitiate, so no 
depr vity can extinguish * 

Now, this is the very principle which is 
brought into action, in the dealings of God 
with a whole world of malefactors. It 
looks as if he confided the whole cause of 
our recovery to the influence of a demon- 
stration of good will. It is truly interest- 
ing to mark, what, in the devisings of his 
unsearchable wisdom, is the character which 
he has made to stand most visibly out, in 
the great scheme and history of our re- 
demption: and surely if there be one fea- 
ture of prominency more visible than an- 
other, it is the love of kindness. There 
appears to be no other possible way, by 
which a responding affection can be depo- 
sited in the heart of man. Certain it is, 
that the law of love cannot be carried to its 
ascendency over us by storm. Authority 
cannot command it. Strength cannot im- 
plant it. Terror cannot charm it into ex- 
istence. The threatenings of vengeance 
may stifle, or they may repel, but they 
never can woo this delicate principle of our 
nature, into a warm and confiding attach- 
ment. The human heart remains shut, in 
all its receptacles, against the force of these 
various applications ; and God, who knew 
what was in man, seems to have known, 
that in his dark and guilty bosom, there was 
but one solitary hold that he had over him ; 
and that to reach it, he must just put on a 
look of graciousness, and tell us that he has 
no pleasure in our death, and manifest to- 
wards us the longings of a bereaved parent, 
and even humble himself to a suppliant in 
the cause of our return, and send a Gospel 
of peace into the world, and bid his messen- 
gers to bear throughout all its habitations, 
the tidings of his good-will to the children 
of men. This is the topic of his most 
anxious and repeated demonstration. This 
manifested good will of God to his crea- 
tures, is the band of love, and the cord 
of a man, by which he draws them. It is 



* The operation of the same principle has, of 
late, been strikingly exemplified by Mrs. Fry, 
and her coadjutors, in the prison at Newgate. 



true, that from the inaccessible throne of 
his glory, we see no direct emanation of 
his tenderness upon us, from this face of 
the King who is invisible. But, as if to 
make up for this, he sent his Son into the 
world, and declared him to be God mani- 
fest in the flesh, and let us see, in his tears, 
and in his sympathies, and in all the recorded 
traits of his kindness, and gentleness, and 
love, what a God we have to deal with. It 
is true, that even in love to us, he did not 
let down one attribute of truth or of ma- 
jesty which belonged to him. But, in love 
to us, he hath laid upon his own Son the 
burden of their vindication ; — and now, that 
every obstacle is done away; now, that the 
barrier which lay across the path of ac- 
ceptance, is levelled by the power of him 
who travailed in the greatness of his strength 
for us ; now, that the blood of atonement 
has been shed, and that the justice of God 
has been magnified, and that our iniquities 
have been placed on the great Sacrifice, and 
so borne away that there is no more men- 
tion of them : now, that with his dignity 
entire, and his holiness untainted, the door 
of heaven may be opened, and sinners be 
called upon to enter in, — is the voice of a 
friendly and beseeching God, lifted up with- 
out reserve, in the hearing of us all; — his 
love of kindness is published abroad among 
men; — and this one mighty principle of 
attraction is brought to bear upon a nature, 
that might have remained sullen and un- 
moved under every other application. 

And, as God, in the measure of restoring 
a degenerate world unto himself, hath set 
in operation the very same principle as that 
which we have attempted to illustrate, — so 
the operation hath produced the very same 
result that w T e have ascribed to it. As soon 
as his love of kindness is believed, so soon 
does the love of gratitude spring up in the 
heart of the believer. As soon as man gives 
up his fear and his suspicion of God, and 
discerns him to be his friend, so soon does 
he render him the homage of a willing and 
affectionate loyalty. There is not a man 
who can say, I have known and believed 
the love which God hath to us, who cannot 
say also, I have loved God because he first 
loved me. There has not, w r e will venture 
to affirm, been a single example in the 
whole history of the church, of a man Avho 
had a real faith in the overtures of peace 
and of tenderness which are proposed by 
the Gospel, and who did not, at the same 
time, exemplify this attribute of the Christian 
faith, that it worketh by love. 

It is thus that the faith, which recognizes 
God, as God in Christ reconciling the world 
unto himself, lies at the turning point of 
conversion. In this way, and in this way 
alone, is there an inlet of communication 
open to the heart of man, for that principle 
of love to God, which gives all its power 



180 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



[sERM. 



and all its character to the new obedience 
of the gospel. So soon as a man really 
knows the truth, and no man can be said to 
know What he does not believe, will this 
truth enthrone a new affection in his bosom, 
which will set him free from the dominion 
of all such affections as are earthly and re- 
bellious. The whole style and spirit of his 
obedience are transformed. The man now 
walks with the vigour, and the confidence, 
and the enlargement, of one who is set at 
liberty. It looks a mysterious revolution 
in the general eye of the world. But the 
fact is, that from the moment a sinner 
closes with the overtures of the gospel, 
from that moment a new era is established 
in the history of his mind altogether. As 
soon as he sees what he never saw before, 
so soon does he feel what he never felt be- 
fore. Without the faith of the gospel he 
may serve God in the spirit of bondage : 
he may be driven, by the terrors of his law, 
into many outward and reluctant conformi- 
ties ; he may even, without the influence of 
these terrors, maintain a thousand decen- 
cies of tastes, and custom, and established 
observation. But he is still an utter stranger 
to the first and the greatest commandment. 
There may be the homage of many a visi- 
ble movement with the body, while, in the 
whole bent and disposition of the soul there 
is nothing but aversion, and distance, and 
enmity. Even the word of the gospel may 
be addressed, Sabbath after Sabbath, and 
that too, to hearers who offer no positive 
resistance to it,-— but coming to them only 
in word, they remain as motionless and un- 
impressed as ever, and with an utter dor- 
mancy in their hearts as to any responding 
movement of gratitude. The heart, in fact, 
remains unapproachable in every other way, 
but by the gospel coming to it, not in word 
only, but in power, and in the Holy Ghost, 
and in much assurance. Then is it, that 
the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts ; 
and that the gospel approves itself to be his 
power, and his wisdom, to the sanct'ification 
of all who believe in it. 

INoW, the theologians to whom we allude, 
have set up obstacles in the way of such a 
process. They hold a language about the 
disinterested love of God, and demand this 
at the very outset of a man's conversion, in 
such a way, as may retard his entrance 
upon a life of faith, — as may have prolonged 
the darkness of many an inquirer, and have 
kept him in a state of despair, whom a right 
understanding of the gospel would have 
relieved of all his doubts, and all his per- 
plexities. They seem to look on the love 
of gratitude, as having in it a taint of selfish- 
ness. They say that to love a being, 
because he is my benefactor, is little bet- 
ter than to love the benefit which he has 
conferred upon me ; and that this, instead 
of any evidence of a state of grace, is the 



mere effect of an appetite which belongs 
essentially and universally to the animal 
state of nature. They appear to have missed 
the distinction, between the love that is felt 
towards the benefit itself, and the love of 
gratitude that is felt towards the author of 
it; though certainly there are here two ob- 
jects of affection altogether distinct from 
each other. 

My liking for the gift is a different phase 
of mind from my liking for the giver. In 
the one exercise, I am looking to a different 
object, and my thoughts have a different 
employment, from what they have in the 
other. Had I an affection for the gift, without 
an affection for the giver, then might I evince 
an unmixed selfishness of character. But I 
may have both; and my affection for the 
giver may be purely in obedience to that 
law of reciprocity, whereby if another likes 
me, I am disposed by that circumstance, 
and by that alone, to like him back again. 
The gift may serve merely the purpose of 
an indication. It is the medium through 
which I perceive the love that another bears 
me. But it is possible for me to perceive 
this through another medium, and, in this 
case, the rising gratitude of my bosom might 
look a purer and more disinterested emotion. 
But the truth is, that it retains the very same 
character, though a gift has been the occa- 
sion of its excitement,— and, therefore, it 
ought not to have been so assimilated to the 
principle of selfishness. It ought not to 
have been so discouraged, and made the 
object of suspicion, at that moment of its 
evolution, when the returning sinner looks 
by faith to the truths and the promises of 
the gospel, and sees in them the tenderness 
of an inviting God. It ought not to have 
been so stigmatized, as a mere portion of 
his unrenewed nature ; for, in truth, it will 
heighten and grow upon him, with every 
step in the advancement of his moral re- 
novation. It Will be one of the gracefullest 
of his accomplishments in this world ; and 
so far from being extinguished in the next, 
along with the baser and more selfish affec- 
tions of our constitution, it will pour an ani- 
mating spirit into many a song of ecstacy, 
to him who loved us, and washed us from 
our sins in his own blood. The law of love 
begetting love, will obtain in eternity. Like 
the law of reciprocal attraction in the ma- 
terial world, it will cement the immutable 
and everlasting order of that moral system, 
which is to emerge with the new heavens 
and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righ- 
teousness. The love which emanates from 
the throne of God, upon his surrounding 
family, will call back a voice of blessing, 
and thanksgiving, -and glory, from all the 
members of it. And the love which his 
children bear to each other, will, in like 
manner, be reflected and multiplied. All 
that is wrong in selfisnness will be there 



X,] 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



181 



unknown. But gratitude, so far from being 
counted an unseemly companion for para- 
dise, will be one chief ingredient in the 
fulness of its joy ; one of the purest and 
most exquisite of those pleasures which are 
for evermore. 

The first consideration, then, upon which 
we would elevate gratitude to the rank of a 
virtue, is, that in its object, it is altogether 
distinct from selfishness. It is enough, in- 
deed, to dissolve the imagination of any 
kindred character between selfishness and 
gratitude, that the man without selfishness, 
seems to the eye of a beholder, as standing 
on a lofty eminence of virtue. The man 
without gratitude, is held, by all, to be a 
monster of deformity. Give me a man who 
seizes with ravenous appropriation all that 
I have to bestow,— and who hoards it, or 
feeds upon it, or, in any way rejoices over 
it, without one grateful movement of his 
heart towards me, — and you lay before me 
a character, not merely unlike, but diametri- 
cally opposite, to the character of him who 
obtains the very same gift, and, perhaps, de- 
rives from the use of it, an equal, or a greater 
degree of enjoyment, to the sensitive part 
of his nature, — but who, in addition to all 
this, has thought, and affection, and the 
higher principles of his nature, excited by 
the consideration of the giver ; and looks to 
the manifested love that appears in this act 
of generosity; and is touched with love 
back again; and, under the influence of this 
responding affection, conceives the kindest 
wishes, and pours out the warmest prayers, 
for the interest of his benefactor, and shows 
him all the symptoms of friendship, and 
surrounds him with all its services. 

The second consideration upon which we 
would elevate gratitude to the rank of a 
pure virtue, has already been glanced at. 
Were it not a virtue, it would have no place 
in heaven. Did it only appertain to the un- 
renewed part of our nature, it would find- 
no admittance among the saints in paradise. 
But one of the songs of the redeemed, is a 
song of gratitude. 

And, thirdly, by looking more closely to 
this affection, both in its origin and in its 
exercises, we shall perceive in it, more 
clearly, all the characteristics of virtue. 

Let it be remarked, then, that an affection 
may simply exist, and yet be no evidence 
of any virtue, or of any moral worth in the 
holder of it. I may look on a beautiful 
prospect, and be drawn out to an invo- 
luntary sentiment of admiration. Or, I may 
look on my infant child, and without one 
effort of volition, feel a parental tenderness 
towards it. Or, I may be present at a scene 
of distress, and without choosing or wining 
to be so, I may be moved to the softest com- 
passion. And, in this way, -I may have a 
character made up of many affections, some 
<of which are tasteful, some of which are 



most amiable in themselves, and some of 
which are most useful to society and yet 
none of which may possess the smallest 
portion of the essential character of virtue. 
They may be brought into exercise without 
any working of a sense of duty whatever. 
One of those we have specified — the instinc- 
tive affection of parents for their young, is 
exemplified in all its strength, and in all its 
tenderness, by the inferior animals. And, 
therefore, if we want to know what that is 
which constitutes the character of virtue, or 
moral worth, in a human being, we must 
look to something else, than to the mere 
existence of certain affections, however val- 
uable they may prove to others, or whatever 
gracefulness they may shed over the com- 
plexion of him who possesses them. 

Now, it would be raising a collateral into 
a main topic, were we to enter upon a full 
explanation of the matter that has now been 
suggested. And we shall, therefore, briefly 
remark, that to give the character of virtue 
to any grace of the inner man, the will, 
acting under a sense of duty, must, in some 
way or other, have been concerned in the 
establishment, or in the continuance of it ; 
and that to give the same character of virtue to 
a deed of the outer man, the will must also 
be concerned. A deed is only virtuous in 
as far as it is voluntary ; and it is only in 
proportion to the share which the will has 
in the performance of it, and the will im- 
pelling us to do, what we are persuaded 
ought to be done, that there can be awarded, 
to the deed in question, any character of 
moral estimation. 

This will explain what the circumstances 
are, under which the gratitude of a human 
being may at one time be an instinct, and 
at another time a virtue. I may enter the 
house of an individual who is an utter 
stranger to the habit of acting under a sense 
of duty ; who is just as much the creature 
of mere impulse, as the animals beneath 
him ; and who, therefore, though some of 
these impulses are more characteristic of 
his condition as a man, and most subser- 
vient to the good of his fellows, may be con- 
sidered as possessing no virtue whatever, 
in the strict and proper sense of the term. 
But he has the property of being affected 
by external causes. And I, by some mi- 
nistration of friendship, may flash upon his 
mind such an overpowering conviction of 
the good will that I bear him, as to affect 
him with a sense of gratitude even unto 
tears. The moral obligation of gratitude 
may not be present to his mind at all. But 
the emotion of gratitude comes into his 
heart unbidden, and finds its vent in ac- 
knowledgments, and blessings, on the per- 
son of his benefactor. We would say, of 
such a person, that he possesses a happier 
original constitution than another, who, in 
the same circumstances, would not be so 



182 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM 



powerfully or so tenderly affected. And 
yet he may have hitherto evinced nothing 
more than the workings of a mere instinct, 
which springs spontaneously within him, 
and gives its own impulse to his words and 
his performances, without a sense of duty 
having any share in the matter, or without 
the will prompting the individual by any 
such consideration, as, let me do this thing 
because I ought to do it. . 

Let us now conceive the moral sense to 
be admitted to its share of influence over 
this proceeding. Let it be consulted on the 
question of what ought to be felt, and what 
ought to be done, by one being, when an- 
other evinces the love of kindness towards 
him. A mere instinct may, in point of fact, 
draw out a return of love and of service 
back again. But it is the province of the 
moral sense to pronounce on the point of 
obligation, and we speak its universal sug- 
gestion, when we say, that the love of grati- 
tude ought to be felt, and the services of 
gratitude ought to be rendered. 

Now, to make this decision of the moral 
sense practically effectual, and, indeed, to 
make the moral sense have any thing to do' 
with this question at all, the feeling of grati- 
tude must, in some way or other, be de- 
pendent either for its existence, or its 
growth, or its continuance, upon the will ; 
and the same will must also have a com- 
mand over the services of gratitude. The 
moral sense, in fact, never interposes with 
any dictate, or with any declaration about 
the feelings, or the conduct of man, unless 
in so far as the will of man has an influ- 
ence, and a power of regulation over them. 
It never makes the rate of the circulation 
of the blood a question of duty, because 
this is altogether an involuntary move- 
ment. And it never would have offered any 
authoritative intimation, about the way in 
which gratitude ought to be felt, or ought 
to be expressed, unless the will had had 
some kind of presiding sovereignty over 
both the degree and the workings of this 
affection. 

The first way, then, in which the will 
may have to do with the love of gratitude, 
is by the putting forth of a desire for the pos- 
session of it. It may long to realize this moral 
accomplishment It may hunger and thirst 
after this branch of righteousness. Even 
though it has not any such power under its 
command as would enable it to fulfil such 
a volition, the volition itself has, upon it, 
the stamp and the character of virtue. The 
man who habitually wills to have in his 
heart a love of gratitude towards God, is a 
man at least of holy desires, if not of holy 
attainments. And, when we consider that 
a way has actually been established, in 
which the desire may be followed up by 
the attainment, — when we read of the pro- 
mise given to those who seek after God, — 



when we learn the assurance that he will 
grant the heart's desire of i those who will 
stir themselves up to lay hold of him, — 
when we think that prayer is the natural 
expression of desire for an object which 
man cannot reach, but which God is both 
able and willing to confer upon him, — then 
do we see how the very existence of the 
love of gratitude may have had its pure and 
holy commencement, in such a habitude of 
the will as has the essential character of 
virtue engraven upon it. " Keep your- 
selves," says the Apostle, "in the love of 
God, by praying in the Holy Ghost." 

But, again, there are certain doings of 
the mind, over which the will has a control, 
and by which the affection of gratitude 
may either be brought into being, or be sus- 
tained in lively and persevering exercise. 
At the bidding of the will, I can think of 
one topic, rather than of another. I can 
transfer my mind to any given object of 
contemplation. I can keep that object stea- 
dily in view, and make an effort to do so, 
when placed in such circumstances as might 
lead me to distraction or forgetfulness. And 
it is in this way that moral praise or moral 
responsibility, may be attached to the love 
of gratitude. Ere the heart can be moved 
by this affection to another, there must be 
in the mind a certain appropriate object, 
that is fitted to call it, and to keep it in ex- 
istence, — and that object is the love of kind- 
ness which the other bears me. I may en- 
deavour, and I may succeed in the endea- 
vour, to hold this love of kindness in daily 
and perpetual remembrance. If the will 
have to do with the exercises of thought 
and memory, then the will may be respon- 
sible for the gratitude that would spring in 
my bosom, did I only think of the love of 
God, and that would continue with me in 
the shape of an habitual affection, did I only 
keep that love in habitual remembrance. It 
is thus that the forgetfulness of God is 
chargeable with criminality, — and it will 
appear a righteous thing in the day of judg- 
ment, when they, who are thus forgetful of 
him, shall be turned into hell. It is this 
which arms, with such a moral and condem- 
natory force, the expostulation he holds with 
Israel, " that Israel doth not know, that my 
people do not consider." It is because we 
like not to retain God in our knowledge, 
that our minds become reprobate; — and, 
on the other hand, it is by a continuous effort 
of my will, towards the thought of him, 
that I forget not his benefits. It is by the 
strenuousness of a voluntary act, that I con- 
nect the idea of an unseen benefactor, with 
all the blessings of my present lot, and all 
the anticipations of my futurity. It is by a 
combat with the most urgent propensities 
of nature, that I am ever looking beyond 
this surrounding materialism, and setting 
God and his love before me all the day long 



X.] DEPRAVITY OF 

There is no virtue, it is allowed, without 
voluntary exertion ; but this is the very 
character which runs throughout the whole 
work and exercise of faith. To keep him- 
self in the love of God is a habit, with the 
maintenance of which the will of man has 
most essentially to do, because it is at his 
will that he keeps himself in the thought of 
God's love towards him. To bid away from 
me such intrusions of sense, and of time, 
as would shut God out of my recollections ; 
to keep alive the impression of him in the 
midst of bustle, and company, and worldly 
avocations ; to recall the thought of him and 
of his kindness, under crosses, and vexa- 
tions, and annoyances ; to be still, and know 
that he is God, even when beset with tempt- 
tations to impatience and discontent ; never to 
loose sight of him as merciful and gracious; 
and above all, never to let go my hold of that 
great Propitiation, by which in every time of 
trouble, I have the privilege of access with 
confidence to my reconciled Father; these are 
all so many acts of faith, but they are just 
such acts as the will bears a share, and a 
sovereignity, in the performance of. And, 
as they are the very acts which go to ali- 
ment and to sustain the love of gratitude 
within me, it may be seen, how an affection 
which, in the first instance, may spring in- 
voluntarily, and be therefore regarded as a 
mere instinct of nature, or as bearing upon 
it a complexion of selfishness, may, in an- 
other view, have upon it a complexion of 
deepest sacredness, and be rendered unto 
God in the shape of a duteous and devoted 
offering from a voluntary agent, and be, in 
fact, the laborious result of a most difficult, 
and persevering, and pains-taking habit of 
obedience. 

And if this be true of the mere sense of 
gratitude, it is still more obviously true of 
the services of gratitude. "What shall I 
render unto the Lord for all his benefits V 
is the genuine language of this affection. It 
seeks to make a gratifying return of service, 
and that, under the feeling that it ought to 
do so. Or, in other words, do we behold 
that it is the will of man, prompted by a 
sense of duty, which leads him on to the 
obedience of gratitude, and that the whole of 
this obedience is pervaded by the essential 
character of virtue. This is the love of 
God, that ye keep his commandments. 
This is the most gratifying return unto him, 
that ye do those things which are pleasing 
in his sight. And thus it is, that the love of 
gratitude may be vindicated in its character 
of moral worth, from its first commence- 
ment in the heart to its ultimate effect on 
the walk and conversation. It is originally 
distinct from selfishness in its object; and 
it derives a virtuousness at its very outset, 
from the aspirations of a soul bent on the 
acquirement of it, because bent on being 
what it ought to be ; and it is sustained, both 



HUMAN NATURE. 183 

in life and in exercise, by such habits of 
thought as are of voluntary cultivation ; and 
it nobly sustains an aspect of moral righ- 
teousness onwards to the final result of its 
operation on the character, by setting him 
who is under its power, on a career of obe- 
dience to God, and introducing him to an 
arduous contest of principle, with all the 
influences of sense and of the world. 

If, to render an affection virtuous, the 
will acting under a sense of duty, should be 
concerned either in producing or in per- 
petuating it ; then the love of moral esteem 
coming into the heart, as an involutar); 
sensation, may, in certain circumstances, 
have as little of the character of virtue as 
the love of gratitude. In this respect, both 
these affections are upon a footing with 
each other; and the first ought not to 
have been exalted at the expense of the se- 
cond. That either be upheld within us in 
our present state, there must, in fact, be the 
putting forth of the same voluntary control 
over the thoughts and contemplations of 
the understanding; the same active exer- 
cise of faith; the same laborious resistance 
to all those urgencies of sense which would 
expel from the mind the idea of an unseen 
and spiritual object ; the same remembrance 
of God sustained by effort, and prayer, and 
meditation. 

II. We now feel ourselves in a condition 
to speak of the Gospel, in its free and gra- 
tuitous character ; to propose its blessings 
as a gift; to hold out the pardon, and the 
strength, and all the other privileges which 
it proclaims to believers, as so many articles 
for their immediate acceptance ; to make it 
known to men that they are not to delay 
their compliance with the overtures of 
mercy, till the disinterested love of God 
arises in their hearts ; but that they have a 
warrant for entering even now, into instant 
reconciliation with God. Nor are we to 
dread the approach of any moral contami- 
nation, though when, after their eyes are 
opened to the marvellous spectacle of a plead- 
ing, and offering, and beseeching God, hold- 
ing out eternal life unto the guilty, through 
the propitiation which his own Son hath 
made for them, they should, from that mo- 
ment, open their whole soul, to the influ- 
ences of gratitude, and love the God who 
thus hath first loved them. 

We conclude then with remarking, that 
the whole of this argument gives us another 
view of the importance of faith. We do not 
say all for it that we ought, when we say 
that by faith we are justified in the sight of 
God. By faith also our hearts are purified. 
It is in fact the primary and the presiding 
principle of regeneration. It brings the 
heart into contact with that influence by 
which the love of gratitude is awakened. 
The love of God to us, if it is not believed, 
will exert no more power over our affections 



184 



DEPRAVITY OF 



HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



than if it were a nonentity. They are 
the preachers of faith, then, who alone deal 
out to their hearers, the elementary and 
pervading spirit of the Christian morality. 
And the men who have been stigmatized as 
the enemies of good works, are the very 
men who are most sedulously employed in 
depositing within you, that good seed which 
has its fruit unto holiness. We are far from 
asserting, that the agency of grace is not 
concerned, in every step of that process, by 
which a sinner is conducted from the outset 
of his conversion to the state of being per- 
fect, and complete in the whole will of God. 
But there is a harmony between the pro- 
cesses of grace and of nature ; and in the 
same manner, as in human society, the ac- 
tual conviction of a neighbour's good-will 
to me, takes the precedency in point of or- 
der of any returning movement of gratitude 
on my part; so, in the great concerns of our 
fellowship with God, my belief that he loves 
me, is an event prior and preparatory to 
the event of my loving him. So that the 
primary obstacle to the love of God is not 
the want of human gratitude, but the want 
of human faith. 

The reason why man is not excited to 
the love of God by the revelation of God's 
love to him, is just because he does not be- 
lieve that revelation. This is the barrier 
which lies between the guilty and their of- 
fended Lawgiver. It is not the ingratitude 
of man, but the incredulity of man, that 
needs, in the first instance, to be overcome. 
It is the sullenness, and the hardness, and 
the obstinacy of unbelief which stands as a 
gate of iron, between him and his enlarge- 
ment. Could the kindness of God, in Christ 
Jesus, be seen by him, the softening of a 
kindness back again, would be felt by him. 
And let us cease to wonder, then, at the 
preachers of the gospel, w r hen they lay upon 
belief all the stress of a fundamental opera- 
tion; — when they lavish so much of their 
strength on the establishment of a principle, 
which is not only initial, but indispensable ; 
when they try so strenuously to charm that 
into existence, without which all the ele- 
ments of a spiritual obedience are in a state 
of dormancy or of death; — when they la- 
bour at the only practicable way by which 
the heart of a sinner can be touched, and 
attracted towards God ; — when they try so 
repeatedly to hold and to fasten him by 
that link which God himself hath put into 
their hands — and bring the mighty princi- 



ple to bear upon their hearers, which any 
one of us may exemplify upon the poorest^ 
and by which both Howard and Fry have 
tried with success, to soften and to reclaim 
the most worthless of mankind. 

This also suggests a practical direction to 
Christians, for keeping themselves in the 
love of God. They must keep themselves 
in the habit, and in the exercise of faith 
They must hold fast that conviction in their 
minds, the presence of which is indispensa- 
ble to the keeping of that affection in their 
hearts. This is one of the methods recom- 
mended by the Apostle Jude, when he tells 
his disciples to build themselves up on their 
most holy faith. This direction to you is 
both intelligible and practicable. Keep in 
view the truths which you have learned. 
Cherish that belief of them which you 
already possess. Recall them to your 
thoughts, and, in general, they will not 
come alone, but they will come accompa- 
nied by their own power, and their own 
evidence. You may as well think of main- 
taining a steadfast attachment to your 
friend, after you have expunged from your 
memory all the demonstrations of kindness 
he ever bestowed upon you, as think of 
keeping your heart in the love of God, 
after the thoughts and contemplations of 
the gospel have fled from it. It is just by 
holding these fast, and by building yourself 
up on their firm certainty, that you preserve 
this affection. Any man, versant in the 
matters of experimental religion, knows 
well what it is when a blight and a barren- 
ness come over the mind, and when, under 
the power of such a visitation, it loses all sen- 
sibility towards God. There is at that time 
a hiding of his countenance, and you lose 
your hold of the manifestation of that love 
wherewith God loved the world, even when 
he sent his only begotten Son into it, that 
we might live through him. You will re- 
cover a right frame, when you recover your 
hold of this consideration. If you want to 
recall the strayed affection to your heart — 
recall to your mind the departed object of 
contemplation. If you want to reinstate 
the principle of love in your bosom — rein- 
state faith, and it will work by love. It is 
got at through the medium of believing, and 
trusting; — nor do we know a more sum- 
mary, and, at the same time, a more likely 
direction for living a life of holy and hea- 
venly affection, than that you should live a 
life of faith. 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 185 



SERMON XI. 

The Affection of Moral Esteem towards God. 

" One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all 
the days of ray life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple." — Psalm xxvii. 4. 



In our last discourse we adverted to the 
effect of a certain theological speculation 
about love, in darkening the freeness of the 
gospel, and intercepting the direct influence 
of its overtures and its calls on the mind of 
an inquirer. Ere we can conceive the love 
of gratitude towards another, we must see 
in him the love of kindness towards us ; and 
thus, by those who have failed to distinguish 
between a love of the benefit, and a love of 
the benefactor, has the virtue of gratitude 
been resolved into the love of ourselves. 
And they have thought that there must 
surely be a purer affection than this, to 
mark the outset of the great transition from 
sin unto righteousness ; and the one they 
have specified is the disinterested love of 
God. They have given to this last affection 
a place so early, as to distract the attention 
of an inquirer from that which is primary. 
The invitation of " come and buy without 
money, and without price/' is not heard by 
the sinner along with the exaction of loving 
God for himself, — of loving him on account 
of his excellences, — of loving him because 
he is lovely. Let us, therefore, try to ascer- 
tain whether even this love of moral esteem 
is not subordinate to the faith of the gospel ; 
and whether it follows, that because this af- 
fection forms so indispensable a part of 
godliness, faith should, on that account, be 
deposed from the place of antecedency 
which belongs to it. 

And here let it be most readily and most 
abundantly conceded, that we are not per- 
fect and complete in the whole of God's 
will, till the love of moral esteem be in us, 
as well as the love of gratitude, — till that 
principle, of which, by nature, we are ut- 
terly destitute, be made to arise in our 
hearts, and to have there a thorough esta- 
blishment, and operation, — till we love God, 
not merely on account of his love to our 
persons, but on acconnt of the glory, and 
the residing excellence, which meet the eye 
of the spiritual beholder, upon his own cha- 
racter. We are not preparing for heaven, — 
we shali be utterly incapable of sharing in 
the noblest of its enjoyments, — we shall not 
feel ourselves surrounded by an element of 
congeniality in paradise, — there will be no 
happiness for us, even in the neighbourhood 
of the throne of God. and with the moral 
lustre of the Godhead made visible to our 
eyes, if we are strangers to the emotion of 
loving God for himself,— if additional alto- 
2 A 



gether, to the consideration that God is 
looking with complacency upon me, I do 
not feel touched and attracted by the beau- 
ties of his character, when I look with the 
eye of contemplation towards him. I am 
without the most essential of all moral ac- 
complishments in myself, if I am without 
the esteem of moral accomplishments in 
another ; and if my heart be of such a con- 
stitution that nothing in the character of 
God can draw my admiration, or my re- 
gard, to him — then, though admitted within 
the portals of the city which hath founda- 
tions, and removed from the torments of 
hell, I am utterly unfit for the joys and the 
exercises of heaven. I may spend an eter- 
nity of exemption from pain, but without 
one rapture of positive felicity to brighten 
it. Heaven, in fact, would be a wilderness 
to my heart ; and, in the midst of its ac- 
claiming throng would I droop, and be in 
heaviness under a sense of perpetual disso- 
lution. 

And let this convince us of the mighty 
transition that must be described by the 
men of this world, ere they are meet for 
the other world of the spirits of just men 
made perfect. It is not speaking of this 
transition, in terms too great and too lofty, 
to say, that they must be born again, and 
made new creatures, and called out of dark- 
ness into a light that is marvellous. The 
truth is. that out of the pale of vital Chris- 
tianity, there is not to be found among all 
the varieties of taste, and appetite, and sen- 
timental admiration, any love for God as 
he is, — any relish for the holiness of his 
character, — any echoing testimony, in the 
bosom of alienated man, to what is grace- 
ful, or to what is venerable in the character 
of the Deity. He may be feelingly alive to 
the beauties of what is seen, and what is 
sensible. The scenery of external nature 
may charm him. The sublimities of a sur- 
rounding materialism may kindle and di- 
late him with images of grandeur. Even 
the moralities of a fellow-creature may en- 
gage him ; and these, with the works of 
genius, may fascinate him into an idolatrous 
veneration of human power, or of human 
virtue. But while he thus luxuriates and 
delights himself with the forms of derived 
excellence, there is no sensibility in his 
heart towards God. He rather prefers to 
keep by the things that are made, and, sur- 
rounded by them, to bury himself into a 



186 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



forgetfulness of his Maker. He is most in 
his element, when in feeling-, or in employ- 
ment, he is most at a distance from God. 
There is a coldness, or a hatred, or a terror, 
which mixes up with all his contemplations 
of the Deity ; and gives to his mind a kind 
of sensitive recoil from the very thought 
of him. He would like to live always in 
the world, and be content with such felicity 
as it can give, and cares not, could he only 
' get what his heart is set upon here, and be 
permitted to enjoy it for ever, though he 
had no sight of God, and no fellowship 
with him through eternity. The event to 
which, of all others, he looks forward with 
the most revolting sense of aversion and 
dismay, is that event which is to bring him 
into a nearer contact with God, — which is 
to dissolve his present close relationship 
with the creature, and to conduct his dis- 
embodied spirit into the immediate pre- 
sence of the Creator. There is nothing in 
death, in grim, odious, terrific death, that 
he less desires, or is more afraid of, than a 
nearer manifestation of the Deity. The 
world, in truth, the warm and the well 
known world, is his home; and the men 
who live in it, and are as regardless of the 
Divinity as himself, form the whole of his 
companionship. Were it not for the fear 
of hell, he would shrink from heaven as 
a dull and melancholy exile. All its songs 
of glory to him who sitteth on the throne, 
would be to his heart a burden and a weari- 
ness ; — and thus it is, that the foundation 
of every natural man has its place in that 
perishable earth, from which death will 
soon carry him away, and which the fiery 
indignation of God will at length burn up ; 
and as to the being who endureth for ever, 
and with whom alone he has to do, he sees 
in him no form nor comeliness, nor no 
beauty that he should desire him. 

Now, is not this due to the darkness of 
nature, as well as to the depravity of na- 
ture? There is in our diseased constitu- 
tion, a spiritual blindness to the excellen- 
ces of the Godhead, as well as a spiritual 
disrelish for them. The truth is, that these 
two elements go together in the sad pro- 
gress of human degeneracy. Man liked not 
to retain God in his knowledge, and God 
gave him over to a reprobate mind ; and 
again, man walking in vanity, and an 
enemy to God by wicked works, had his 
understanding darkened, and was visited 
with ignorance, and blindness of heart. We 
do not apprehend God, and therefore it is 
that we must be renewed in the knowledge 
of him, ere we can be formed again to the 
love of him. The natural man can no more 
admire the Deity through the obscurities in 
which he is shrouded, than he can admire a 
landscape which he never saw, and which 
at the time of his approach to it, is wrap- 
ped in the gloom of midnight. He can no 



I more, with every offort to stir up his facul- 
ties to lay hold of him, catch an endearing 
view of the Deity, than his eye can by 
straining, penetrate its way through a dark- 
ened firmament, to the features of that ma- 
terial loveliness which lies before him, and 
around him. It must be lighted up to him, 
ere he can love it, or enjoy it, and tell us 
what the degree of his affection for the 
scenery would be, if instead of being lighted 
up by the peaceful approach of a summer 
morn, it were to blaze into sudden visibility, 
with all its cultivation and cottages, by the 
fires of a bursting volcano. Tell us, if all 
the glory and gracefulness of the landscape 
which had thus started into view, would 
charm the beholder for a moment, from the 
terrors of his coming destruction ? Tell us, 
if it is possible for a sentient being to admit 
another thought in such circumstances as 
these, than the thought of his own preser- 
vation. O would not the sentiment of fear 
about himself, cast out every sentiment of 
love for all that he now saw, and were he 
only safe could look upon with ecstacy ? — 
and let the beauty be as exquisite as it may, 
would not all the power and pleasure of its 
enchantments fly away from his bosom, 
were it only seen through the glowing fer- 
vency of elements that threatened to de- 
stroy him ? 

Let us now conceive, that through that 
thick spiritual darkness by which every 
child of nature is encompassed, there was 
forced upon him a view of the countenance 
of the Deity, — that the perfections of God 
were made visible, — and that the character 
on which the angels of paradise gaze with 
delight, because they there behold all the 
lineaments of moral grandeur, and moral 
loveliness, were placed before the eye of his 
mind, in bright and convincing manifes- 
tation. It is very true, that on what he 
would be thus made to see, all that is fair 
and magnificent are assembled, — that what- 
ever of greatness, or whatever of beauty can 
be found in creation, is but a faint and 
shadowy transcript of that original sub- 
stantial excellence, which resides in the 
conceptions of him who is the fountain of 
being, — that all the pleasing of goodness, 
and all the venerable of worth, and all the 
sovereign command of moral dignity meet 
and are realised on the person of God, — 
that through the whole range of universal 
existence there cannot be devised a single 
feature of excellence which does not serve 
to enrich the character of him who sustains 
all things, and who originated all things. 
No wonder that the pure eye of an angel 
takes in such fulness of pleasure from a 
contemplation so ravishing. But let all this 
burst upon the eye of a sinner, and let the 
truth and the righteousness of God out of 
Christ stand before it in visible array, along 
with the other glories of character which 



XI.] 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN' NATURE. 



187 



belong to him. The love of moral esteem, 
you may say, ought to arise in his bosom ; — 
but it cannot. The affection is in such cir- 
cumstances impossible. The man is in ter- 
ror. And he can no more look with com- 
placency upon his God, than he can delight 
himself with the fair forms of a landscape, 
opened to his view by the flashes of an im- 
pending v-olcano. He cannot draw an emo- 
tion so sweet and delightful as love, from 
the view of that countenance on which he 
beholds a purpose of vengeance against 
himself, as one of the children of iniquity. 
The fear which hath torment casteth out 
this affection altogether. There is positively 
no room for it within the bosom of a sen- 
tient being, along with the dread and the 
alarm by which he is agitated. It is this 
which explains the recoil of his sinful na- 
ture from the thought of God. The sense 
of guilt comes into his heart, and the terrors 
and the agitations of guilt come along with 
it. It is because he sees the justice of God 
frowning upon him, and the truth of God 
pledged to the execution of its threatenings 
against him, and the holiness of God which 
cannot look upon him without abhorrence, 
and all the sacred attributes of a nature 
that is jealous, and unchangeable, leagued 
against him for his everlasting destruction. 
He cannot love the Being, with the very 
idea of whom there is mixed up a sense of 
danger, and a dread of condemnation, and 
all the images of a wretched eternity. We 
cannot love God, so long as we look upon 
him as an enemy armed to destroy us. Ere 
we love him, we must be made to feel the 
security, and the enlargement of one who 
knows himself to be safe. Let him take 
his rod away from me, and let not his fear 
terrify me, — and then may I love him and 
not fear him ; but it is not so with me. 

But let him who commanded the light to 
shine out of darkness, shine in our hearts 
to give us the light of the knowledge of his 
own glory, in the face of Jesus Christ, — 
let us only look upon him as God in Christ 
reconciling the world unto himself, and not 
imputing unto them their trespasses, — let 
him without expunging the characters of 
truth and majesty, from that one aspect of 
perfect excellence which belongs to him, — 
let him in his own unsearchable wisdom 
devise a way by which he can both bring 
them out in the eye of sinners with brighter 
illustration, and make these sinners feel that 
they are safe ; — let him lift off from the men 
of this guilty world, the burden of his vio- 
lated law, and cause it to be borne by an- 
other who can magnify that law, and make 
it honourable, — let him publish a full re- 
lease from all its penalties, but in such a 
way, as that the truth which proclaimed 
them, and the justice which should execute 
them, shall remain untainted under the dis- 
pensation of mercy, — let him instead of 



awaking the sword of vengeance against 
us, awake it against a sufferer of such worth 
and such dignity, that his blood shall be 
the atonement of a world, and by pouring 
out his soul unto death, he shall make the 
pardon of the transgressor meet, and be at 
one with the everlasting righteousness of 
God, — in a word, instead of the character 
of God being lighted up to the eye of the 
sinner, by the fire of his own indignation, 
let it through the demonstration of the 
Spirit be illustrated, and shone upon, by the 
mild, but peaceful light of the Sun of righ- 
teousness, and then may the sinner look in 
peace and safety on the manifested charac- 
ter of the Godhead. Delivered from the 
burden of his fears, he may now open his 
whole heart to the influences of affection. 
And that love of moral esteem, which be- 
fore the entrance of the faith of the gospel, 
the sense of condemnation was sure to 
scare away, is now free to take its place 
beside the love of gratitude, and to arise 
along with it in the offering of one spiritual 
sacrifice to a reconciled Father. 

Thus, then, it would appear, that the love 
of moral esteem is in every way as much 
posterior, and subordinate to faith, as is the 
love of gratitude. That we may be able to 
love God, either according to the one or 
the other of its modifications, we must first 
know that God loved us. We cannot har- 
bour this affection in any one shape what- 
ever, so long as there is the suspicion, and 
the dread of a yet unsettled controversy 
between us and God. Peace with our of- 
fended Lawgiver, is not the fruit of our 
love, but of our faith ; — and faith, if it be a 
reality, and not a semblance, worketh by 
love. We have peace with God through 
Jesus Christ our Lord. And Ave love much 
when we know, and believe, that our sins 
are forgiven us. 

God did not wait for any returning af- 
fection on the part of a guilty world, ere 
he felt an affection for it himself. At that 
period when he so loved the world, as to 
send his only begotten Son into it, — did it 
exhibit the spectacle of an immense prison- 
house of depravity. Among the men of it, 
there was friendship one for another, but 
there was one unalleviated character of en- 
mity against God. Measuring themselves 
by themselves, there was often a high mu- 
tual esteem for such accomplishments as 
were in demand for the good of society; — 
but that which is highly esteemed among 
men, is in God's sight an abomination; and 
when brought to the measure of that uni- 
versal righteous which forms the standard 
and rule of Heaven's government, was it 
found that our species had through all its 
generations broken off from their allegiance, 
and stood at as wide a distance from the 
obedient, and unfallen creation, as does a 
colony of convicts, from the country which 



188 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



has cast them out of its borders. And it 
was at such a time, when the world liked 
not to retain God in their knowledge, — 
when all flesh had corrupted their ways, — 
when there was none seeking after God, — 
when there was not the thought, or the 
wish, of a movement to him back again, 
that he looked with pity on our fallen race, 
and in the fulness of time, sent his Son into 
the world to seek and to save us. 

And the same is true of every individual 
to whom the overtures of reconciliation 
are proposed. God does not wait for any 
change of affection in our heart, ere we ac- 
cept of pardon at his hands. But he asks 
one and all of us now to accept of pardon, 
and to submit our heart and character to 
the influences of that grace which he is 
ready to bestow upon us. In the gospel he 
proclaims a pardon ready made for you, — 
a deed of amnesty which he is even now 
stretching out for your acceptance, a pre- 
venting offer of mercy, of which, if you 
believe the reality, you will feel that he is 
your friend, and in which feeling you will 
not be disappointed. He does not expect 
from you the love of gratitude, till you 
have known and believed the great things 
that he hath done for you. But he expects 
from you the offering of an homage to his 
truth. He does not expect from you the 
love of moral esteem, till, released from the 
terror of having him for your enemy, you 
may contemplate with all the tranquil 
calmness of conscious safety, the glories 
and the graces of his manifested character. 
But he expects from you faith in his declara- 
tion, that he is not your enemy, — that he has 
no pleasure in your death, — that in Christ he 
is beseeching you to be reconciled, — and 
stretching out to you the arms of invitation. 

The first matter on hand, then, between 
God and sinners, in the work of making 
reconciliation, is, that they believe in him. 
It is, that the tidings of great joy shall fall 
upon them with credit and acceptance. It 
is, that they count the sayings of the word 
of this life to be faithful sayings. It is, thai 
they put faith in the record which God 
hath given of his Son, which if they do, 
they will believe that God hath given them 
eternal life, and that this life is in his Son. 

There is a certain speculation about the 
disinterested love of God, which has served 
to darken and to embarrass this process. 
It has cast an unmerited stigma on the love 
of gratitude. But its worst effect, by far, 
is, that it has impeded the freeness of the 
overtures of the gospel. It has perplexed 
the outset of many an inquirer. It has 
made him search in his own mind for the 
evidences of an affection which he never 
can meet with, till he embraces the offers, 
and relies upon the promises of the New 
Testament. It has deposed faith from that 
post of presiding supremacy which belongs 



to it, and shifted from its place that great 
principle on which both the love of grati- 
tude and the love of moral esteem are sus- 
pended. 

Let us cease to wonder, then, why faith 
occupies so much the station of a pre- 
liminary in the New Testament. It is the 
great starting point, as it were, of Christian 
discipleship. Grant but this principle, and 
love, with all the vigour, and all the alac- 
rity which it gives to obedience, will emerge 
from its operation. There is no other way, 
in fact, of charming love into existence; 
and the gratitude which devotes me to the 
service of a reconciled God, and the love 
of his character, which makes me meet for 
the enjoyment of him in heaven, can only 
arise in my bosom after I have believed. 

Let this consideration shut you up unto 
the faith. Let it exalt in your estimation, 
the mighty importance of a principle, with- 
out which there can neither be any sancti- 
fication here, nor any salvation hereafter. 
Think it not enough that you import it into 
your mind as a bare existence. Know what 
it is to put it into habitual exercise, to dwell 
upon the truths which it embraces, and to 
submit, in feeling and practice, to their 
genuine operation. This is the only way 
in which you can ever live a life of faith 
on the Son of God, — or live by the power 
of a world to come, — or keep yourselves in 
the love of God, seeing that it is only when 
you know and believe that God first loved 
you, that you can be made to love him. 

In the progress of these observations, a 
few thoughts have occurred, which we trust 
may be deemed of sufficient importance 
to be brought forward, — and which we 
bring forward now, as supplementary to the 
whole argument. 

It will have been remarked, that we do 
not consider man as altogether incapable of 
the love of moral esteem towards any being 
whatever. There are certain virtues of 
character which do call forth the admira- 
tion and the tenderness, even of our dis- 
eased nature, when they reside somewhere 
else than in the person of the Deity. Let 
our depravity be what it may, it were in 
the face of all observation to affirm, that 
man does not love the truth rather than 
falsehood, and compassion rather than cru- 
elty, in a fellow-man— and the interesting 
question comes to be, how is it that these 
qualities appear to lose all the force which 
naturally belongs to them, of attracting our 
regard, so as to awaken no such sentiment 
towards God, though they be exemplified 
by him, in a degree that is infinite ? 

It will help us, in part, to resolve this 
question, if we conceive of our man of 
moral virtues, that his very truth, and jus- 
tice, and compassion, lead him, in the de- 
fence of wronged or calumniated innocence, 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



189 



to turn the whole force of his indignation 
on the head of an oppressor; and then think 
of the feeling which will arise, of conse- 
quence, in the heart of the latter. It will be 
a feeling of hatred and antipathy. And yet 
we do not see far into the secrecies of the 
human constitution, if we do not perceive, 
that, in perfect consistency with this feeling 
of personal dislike to the man of virtue, who 
is hostile to him, there may exist, even in 
his vitiated soul, the love of moral esteem 
towards virtue residing in some other quar- 
ter, or exemplified by some other individual. 
Instead of this virtue being realized on the 
person of one who is an enemy to myself, 
let it be offered by description to my no- 
tice, in the person of one who lives in a 
distant country, or who lived in a distant 
age, and let the thought of my particular 
adversary be not offensively suggested to 
my mind by such a contemplation, — and I, 
with all those depravities which have pro- 
voked the resentment of my upright neigh- 
bour against me, and have called forth in 
my heart a corresponding hatred towards 
him, will offer the homage of my regard 
and reverence towards the picture of moral 
excellence, that is thus set before me. This 
may look an anomalous exhibition of our 
nature; but it certainly is not more so, than 
the well-known fact of a slave proprietor, 
at one time wreaking his caprice and his 
cruelty on the living men who are around 
him, and at another weeping, in all the 
softness of pathetic emotion, over the dis- 
tresses of a fictitious narrative. Distress 
in one quarter may move our pity. Dis- 
tress in another may be inflicted by our 
own hand, to glut our vindictive propen- 
sities. "W orth in the person of one who is 
indifferent, and still more of one who is 
friendly, may call forth our warm and ho- 
nest acknowledgments. Worth in the per- 
son of another, the very principles of whose 
character have moved him to irritate our 
pride, or to wound our selfishness, may turn 
him into the object of our most passionate, 
determined, and unrelenting hostility. 

And thus it is, that I may have a natural 
taste for several of the virtues which enter 
into the Godhead, and at the same time, 
may have a hatred towards the person of 
the Godhead. — This natural taste may be 
regarded by some, as a predisposing ele- 
ment in my heart towards the love of God ; 
but so long as I view him armed in righte- 
ousness to destroy me, will this as effectu- 
ally repress the embryo affection, as if still 
it were fast slumbering in the depths of 
nonentity. It is willingly admitted, that 
there are certain partial sketches of the cha- 
racter of the Deity, which, if offered to our 
notice, in a state of separation from his 
anger against us, the children of disobe- 
dience, would kindle in our bosoms a feel- 
ing of tasteful admiration. But the dread, 



or the suspicion of his anger absorbs this 
feeling altogether ; and however much Ave 
may bear the semblance of love for his cha- 
racter, when we look to certain traits of it 
in a detached and broken exhibition, — yet 
this is perfectly consistent with the fact, that 
the natural mind hates the person of the 
Deity, — that the natural mind is enmity 
against God. And this ought to convince us, 
that even though there should be predispos- 
ing elements of love to him for his worth, it 
is still indispensable, in order to change our 
hatred into affection, that we should look 
upon God as having ceased from his anger, 
or that we should see him arrayed in ail the 
tenderness of offered and inviting friendship. 
There is a spell by which these elements 
are fastened, and which can never be done 
away, till God woo me to friendship and 
confidence, by an exhibition of good-will. 

Faith in the cross of Christ, is the pri- 
mary step of this approximation. To call 
for a disinterested affection towards God, 
from one who looks upon God as an adver- 
sary, and that even though there should be 
in his bosom the undeveloped seeds of re- 
gard to the worth or character of the Su- 
preme, is to make a demand on a sentient 
being, which, by his very constitution, he 
is unable to meet or to satisfy. And is not 
this demand still more preposterous, when 
it comes from a quarter where the de- 
pravity of man is held to be so entire, that 
not one latent or predisposing element to- 
wards the love of God is ascribed to him ? 
Is it not a still vainer expectation to think, 
in such hopeless circumstances as these, 
that ere man seizes the gift of redemption, 
he shall import into his character the grace 
of a pure and spiritual affection ; that with 
the terror of his bosom yet unpacified, and 
the countenance of God upon him as unre- 
lenting as ever, there shall arise, in the midst 
of all this agitation, a love to that Being, 
the very thought of whom brings a sense 
of insecurity along with it ; or that a guilty 
creature, who, even if he had in a state of 
dormancy within him the principles of 
moral regard to the Divinity, could not, 
under the burden of wrath still unappeased, 
charm these principles out of the state of 
their inaction, — that he, even were he ut- 
terly destitute of these principles should be 
able, under this burden, to charm them out 
of the state of non-existence ? 

And this, by the way, may serve to show 
the whole amount of that tasteful senti- 
mentalism, in virtue of which, a transient 
but treacherous and hollow regard towards 
the Divinity, may be detected in the hearts 
of those who nauseate the whole spirit and 
contents of the Gospel. They admit into 
their contemplation only as much of the 
character of God, as may serve to make 
out a tender or an engaging exhibition of 
him. They may leave entire the ground- 



190 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



work of his natural attributes ; but, in every 
survey they take of the moral complexion 
of the Godhead, they refuse to look to all 
his moral attributes put together, and only 
fasten their regard upon one of them, even 
the attribute of indulgence. They cannot 
endure the view of his whole character; 
and should this view ever intrude itself, it 
puts to flight all the pathos and elegance 
of mere natural piety. Truth, as directed 
against themselves ; holiness, as refusing to 
dwell in peaceful or approving fellowship 
with themselves ; justice, as committed to a 
sentence of severe and inflexible retribution 
upon themselves, — all these are out of their 
contemplation at that moment, when the 
votaries of a poetical theism feel towards 
their imagined deity an evanescent glow 
of affection or reverence. But truth and 
conscience are ever meddling with this en- 
joyment; and piety resting on so frail and 
partial a foundation, never can attain an 
habitual ascendency over the character; 
and what at the best is fictitious, does not, 
and ought not, to have more than a rare 
and little hour of emotion given to it; and 
this may explain how it is, that with the 
very same individual, there may be both an 
occasional recurrence of devotional feeling, 
and a life of rooted and practical ungodli- 
ness. An illusory representation of God 
will no more draw away our affections 
from the world, or engage us in the solid 
and experimental business of obedience to 
its Maker, than the flippancy of a novel will 
practically influence the habits of nature, or 
of society. And thus it is, that the religion 
which is apart from Christianity, falls as far 
short of true religion, as the humanity we 
have j ust quoted, falls short of true humanity. 

But to return. We have already said, 
that even though there did exist in the heart 
•of man a native regard to certain ingre- 
dients of worth in the character of the Di- 
vinity, a previous exhibition of good will is 
still essential, that the person of the Di- 
vinity may be endeared to him. And the 
argument for such a priority becomes 
much stronger, when it is made out, on a 
farther attention to this matter, that there 
is, in fact, no such native or predisposing 
regard. For, though it be true, that there 
are certain moral virtues, which, when re- 
alized upon man, draw towards them the 
love and the reverence even of our de- 
praved nature, and which, when heightened 
into perfection upon God, should therefore, 
it might be conceived, obtain from nature, 
if placed in favourable circumstances, the 
homage of a love still more tender, and of 
a reverence still more profound ; — yet there 
is one great and comprehensive quality by 
which all the moral attributes of the God- 
head are pervaded, and for which we can 
detect no native and no kindred principle 
of attachment whatever, in the constitution I 



of our species. We allude to the holiness 
of the Godhead. Were we asked to define 
this holiness, we should feel that we were 
not giving to the term its full significancy, 
by saying, that it merely consisted in the 
absolute perfection of all the moral virtues 
of the Divinity. It is a term which, in the 
appropriate force of it, denotes contrast or 
separation. It was for this reason assigned 
to the vessels of the temple, and just be- 
cause they were set apart from common use. 
To have made them common, w r ould have 
been to make them unclean, or unholy. To 
have turned them to any ordinary or house- 
hold purposes, would have been to inflict 
upon them such a touch of profanation, that 
their holiness would have departed from 
them. Had there been a full and perfect 
sense of God in every house, and in every 
heart, — had the presence of the Divinity 
been equally felt by his creatures at all 
times, and in all places, — had the will of the 
Divinity held as presiding an influence over 
the every-day doings, as over the services of 
the solemn and extraordinary occasion, — 
then there might have been no temple, and 
no ritual observation, and, of consequence, 
no room for such an application of the term 
holiness. A thing is not consecrated by 
being set apart from that which is equally 
pure and sacred with itself; and did there 
obtain an equal and universal purity through- 
out the whole system of nature, there could 
be no need for separation. In these circum- 
ces, there would have been no contrast, and, 
therefore, no demand for such a term as 
that of holiness. 

This may serve to illustrate the force and 
import of the term, as applied to the cha- 
racter of God. It does not signify the moral 
perfection of his character, taken absolutely. 
It signifies this perfection in relation to its 
opposite. When we look to the holiness of 
th e divine ch aracter, we look to it in its aspect 
of lofty separation from all that can either 
taint or debase it. We look to its irreconcila- 
ble variance with sin. We look to the inac- 
cessible height at which it stands above all 
the possible acquirements of created nature, 
insomuch, that he who possesses it, charges 
even his angels with folly: and when cre- 
ated nature is not only imperfect, but sinful, 
when we look to the recoil of the Divinity 
from all contact, and from all approxima- 
tion, we think of the purer eyes than can 
behold iniquity, and of the presence so sa- 
cred, that evil cannot dwell with it. We think 
of that sanctuary into which there cannot 
enter any thing that defileth, or that maketh 
a lie, — a sanctuary guarded by all the jea- 
lousies of the Divine nature, and so repugnant 
to the approach of pollution, that if it offer 
to draw nigh, the fire of a consuming indig- 
nation will either check, or will destroy it. 

Now, were the whole severity of this at- 
tribute directed against the violations of 



XI.J 



DEPRAVITY OF 



HUMAN XATURE. 



191 



social kindness, and social equity, we would 
admit that there was a ready coalescence 
with it in the principles of our natural con- 
stitution. But when it searches into the 
character of the most urgent affections of 
nature, and there detects the very essence of 
sinfulness when it sits in judgment over 
the preference given by every child of Adam 
to the creature, rather than the Creator, and 
who holds this in righteous abomination ; — 
when it looks through a society of human 
beings, and pronounces, in spite of ah the 
justice by which its interests are guarded, 
and of all the humanity by which its ills are 
softened, or done away, that, wholly given 
over to the enjoyment of the world, it is 
wholly immersed in the guilt of an idolatry, 
by which the jealousies of the supreme and 
spiritual God are provoked to the uttermost ; 
— when holiness is thus seen, not merely in 
its antipathy to crime, which is occasional 
and rare, but in its antipathy to an affection, 
the rooted obstinacy of which, and the en- 
grossing power of which, are universal, — 
then so far from the coalescence of approving 
nature, do we behold the revolt of pained and 
irritated nature. It no more follows, be- 
cause man loathes the cruelty or the injustice 
of his fellow-man, that he therefore carries 
in his heart a predisposing element of re- 
gard for the essential character of God, 
than it follows, because a man would sicken 
with disgust at the atrocities of a prison- 
house, that he therefore feels his element 
ind his joy to be in the humble piety of a 
conventicle. A high-minded and an ho- 
nourable merchant finds room in his bosom 
for the love both of truth and of the world. 
Yet the one is an attribute of God, while 
the love of the other is opposite to the love 
of God. " If any man love the world," says 
an apostle, " the love of the Father is not in 
him." He may like the transcript of truth, 
and of many other virtues on the face of 
the creature, but he likes not the Creator. 
He can gaze, and that even with rapture on 
the partial and imperfect sketches of the 
unfinished copy, but he shrinks from the 
view of the entire original. He can hold 
the intercourse of wistful thoughts, and fer- 
vent aspiration, the absent object of his 
earthly regard^ but he has neither taste nor 
capacity for communion with his Father in 
heaven. " Holy, holy, holy, Lord God 
Almighty," is the anthem of the celestial, 
but theirs is a delight which he cannot share 
in. And as surely as his body would need 
to be transformed, ere it could cease to have 
pain amid the agonies of hell, — so surely 
would his mind need to be transformed, ere 
it ceased to feel a confinement and an irk- 
someness amid the halleluiahs of paradise. 

Even though man, then, had in his heart 
a nascent affection for the character of God, 
this would be restrained from passing on- 
wards to an affection for his person, by a 



sense of guilt, and the consequent dread of 
God as an enemy. Nor could the love of 
God be inserted in his bosom, till by faith 
in the expiation of the gospel, that which 
letteth was taken out of the way. But still 
more, if, in conformity to our present argu- 
ment, there be no such nascent affection for 
the Divine character, is it hopeless to at- 
tempt the establishment of love antecedently 
to belief, or that attachment should take 
possession of the heart, ere fear takes its de- 
parture away from it. Even if by the work- 
ing of some power unknown in the human 
constitution, or by some effort, the success 
of which has never yet, in a single instance, 
been experienced, there could be made to 
arise in the soul, the love of holiness, pre- 
vious to the act of trusting in the offered 
Saviour, — a terror at God, which, in the 
absence of this trust, is the instinctive and 
universal feeling of nature, would just as 
effectually repress the love of holiness, as it 
does the love of truth, or of compassion, or 
of justice, from carrying us onwards to a 
regard for the person of the Godhead. To 
put the love of God's character into a heart 
not yet brought into enlargement by the 
faith of the gospel, would just be to put it 
into a prison-hold, and there to chain it 
down to a fruitlessness and inactivity, where 
it would be wholly unproductive of love to 
God himself. Confidence must take the 
precedency of this love, even in a bosom 
already furnished with the preparatory ele- 
ments of affection ; and how much more es- 
sential then is it, that it should take the pre- 
cedency in a bosom, where these elements 
are altogether wanting ? Faith is thus more 
strongly evinced to be a thing of prior and 
indispensable necessity. Without it, even 
the seed of any precious affection for the 
Godhead, stifled in embryo, would not blow 
into luxuriance. And if our nature be such 
a wilderness that no seed is there, — if the 
thing wanted be the germination of a new 
principle, and not the developement of an 
old, — if it be by a creative and not by a 
mere fostering process, that we are trans- 
formed into a meetness for heaven, — if the 
agency that is made to bear upon the numan 
soul, must have a power to regenerate as 
well as to repair, — and if the promise of this 
agency be given only to those who believe, 
then let us no more linger, or be bewildered, 
in that abyss of helplessness from which 
faith alone can extricate the inquirer, — let 
us no longer arrest the eye of confidence 
from that demonstration of good will, which 
is held out to the most widely alienated of 
sinners, — but hasten to place ourselves, even 
now, on that foundation of trust, Avhere alone 
we are made the workmanship of God in 
Christ Jesus, and the love of God is shed 
abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost. 

" Destroy this temple," says the Saviour, 
" and I will raise it up again in three days." 



192 



DEPRAVITY Or 



HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



It is there alone that we can behold the 
beauty of the lord and be safe. This place 
of greatest security, is also the place of 
chiefest glory. It is when admitted into 
this greater and more perfect tabernacle, 
that we can look on majesty without terror, 
and on holiness without an overwhelming 
sense of condemnation. The sinner en- 
circled in mercy looks in tranquil contem- 
plation on all that is awful and venerable in 
the character of the Godhead, — and never 
do truth, and righteousness, and purity, 
appear in loftier exhibition before him, than, 
when withheld from his own person, he 
sees the whole burden of their avenging 
laid upon the head of the great Sacrifice. 

" One thing have I desired of the Lord," 
says the Psalmist, " that I may dwell in the 
courts of the Lord, all the days of my life, 
to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to en- 
quire in his temple." It is not till we are 
within the portals of the place of refuge 
that this desire can obtain its fulfilment. 
Selfishness may have originated the move- 
ment which took us there. The fear of the 
coming wrath may have lent celerity to our 
footsteps. A joyful sense of deliverance 
may have been felt, ere the glories of the 
divine character were seen in bright and 
convincing manifestation. The love of 
gratitude may have kindled within us, — 
and, with the Psalmist, we may have to seek, 
and to inquire, and to have daily exercise 
and meditation, ere the love of moral esteem 
has attained the place of ascendency which 
belongs to it. Nevertheless, the chief end 
of man is to glorify God, and to enjoy him 



for ever. This is the real destination of 
every individual who is redeemed from 
among men. This should be the main ob- 
ject of all his prayers, and all his prepara- 
tions. It is this which fits him for the com- 
pany of heaven ; and unless there be a grow- 
ing taste for God, in the glories of his ex- 
cellency, — for God, in the beauties of his 
holiness, — there is no ripening, and no per- 
fecting, for the mansions of immortality. 
Though you have to combat, then, with the 
sluggishness of sense, and with the real 
aversion of nature to every spiritual exercise, 
you must attempt, and stenuousJy cultivate, 
the habit of communion with God. And 
as no man knoweth the Father save the Son 
reveal him, and as it is by the Spirit that 
Christ gives light to those who believe in 
him ; — for the attainment of this great moral 
and spiritual accomplishment, do what the 
Apostle directs you, when he says, " Keep 
yourselves in the love of God, by praying 
in the Holy Ghost." Your first endeavours 
may be feeble, and fatiguing, and fruitless. 
But God will not despise the day of small 
things,— nor will the light of his counte- 
nance be always withheld from those who 
aspire after it, — nor will the soul that thirsts 
after God, be left for ever unsatisfied, — and 
the life and peace of being spiritually mind- 
ed, will come in rich experience to his feel- 
ings, — and the whole habit of his tastes 
and enjoyments, will be in a diametric op- 
position to that of the children of the world, 
— God being the habitation to which he re- 
sorts continually, — God being the strength 
of his heart, and his portion for evermore. 



SERMON XII. 



The Emptiness of Natural Virtue. 
"But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you." — John v. 24. 



When it is said, in a former verse of the 
gospel, that Jesus knew what was in man, 
we feel, that it is a tribute of acknowledg- 
ment, rendered to his superior insight into 
the secrecies of our constitution. It was 
not the mere faculty of perceiving what lay 
before him, that was ascribed to him by the 
Evangelist. It was the faculty of perceiving 
what lay disguised under a semblance, that 
would have imposed on the understanding 
of other men. It was the faculty of de- 
tecting. It was a discerning of the spirit, 
and that not through the transparency of 
such unequivocal symptoms, as brought its 
character clearly home to the view of the 
observer. But it was a discerning of the 
spirit, as it lay wrapt in what, to an ordi- 
nary spectator, was a thick and impenetra- 



ble hiding place. It was a discovery there 
of the real posture and habitude of the soul. 
It was a searching of it out, through all the 
recesses of duplicity, winding and counter- 
winding in such a way as to elude altogether 
the eye of com mom acquaintanceship. It 
was the assigning to it of one attribute, at 
the time when it wore the guise of another 
attribute, — of utter antipathy to the nature 
and design of his mission, at the very time 
that multitudes were drawn around him, 
by the fame of his miracles, — of utter indif- 
ference about God, at the very time that 
they zealously asserted the sanctity of his 
sabbaths, and resented as blasphemous, 
whatever they felt to be an usurpation of 
the greatness which belonged to him only. 
It was in the exercise of this faculty, that 



XII.] 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 193 



Jesus came forward with the utterance of 
our text. The Jews, by whom he was sur- 
rounded, had charged him with the guilt of 
profanation, and sought even to avenge it 
by his death, because he had healed a man 
on the sabbath day. And their desire of 
vengeance was still more inflamed, by what 
they understood to be an assertion, on his 
part, of equality with God. And yet, under 
all this appearance, and even with all this 
reality of a zeal about God, did he who 
knew what was in man pronounce of these 
his enemies, that the love of God was not 
in them. I know you says he, — as if at 
this instant he had put forth a stretch 
of penetration, in order to find his way 
through all the sounds of godliness which 
he heard, and through all the symptoms of 
godliness which he saw, — I know that there 
does not exist within you that principle, 
which links to God, the whole of God's obe- 
dient creation, — I know that you do not 
love him, and that, therefore, you are ut- 
terly in want of that affection, which lies at 
the root of all real, and of all acceptable 
godliness. 

It is mortifying to the man who pos- 
sesses many accomplishments of character, 
to be told, that the greatest and most essen- 
tial accomplishment of a moral being, is 
that of wmich he has no share, — that the 
principle on which we expatiated in our 
last discourses does not, in any of its varie- 
ties, belong to him, — that, wanting it, he 
wants not merely obedience to the first and 
the greatest commandment, which is the 
love of God, but he wants what may be 
called the impregnating quality of all ac- 
ceptable obedience whatever, — the spirit 
which ought to animate the performance of 
every other commandment, and without 
which the most laborious conformity to the 
law of Heaven, may do no more than im- 
press upon his person the cold and lifeless 
image of loyalty, while in his mind there is 
not one of its essential attributes. 

We know not a more useful exercise 
than that of carrying round this conviction 
amongst all the classes and conditions of 
humanity. In the days of our Saviour, the 
pride of the Pharisees stood opposed to 
such a demonstration ; and in our own days, 
too. there are certain pretensions of worth, 
and of excellence, which must be disposted, 
ere we can hope to obtain admittance for 
the humiliating doctrine of the gospel. For 
this gospel, it must be observed, proceeds 
upon the basis, not of a partial, but of an 
entire and universal depravity among the 
men of the world. It assimilates all the 
varieties of the human character into one 
common condition of guilt, and need, and 
helplessness. It presumes the existence of 
such a moral disease in every son and 
daughter of Adam, as renders the applica- 
tion of the same moral remedy indispensa- 



ble to them ail. The formalists of Judea 
did not like to be thus grouped with publi- 
cans and harlots, under one description of 
sinfulness. Nor do men of taste, and feeling, 
and graceful morality, in our present day, 
readily understand how they should require 
the same kind of treatment, in the work of 
preparing them for immortality, with the 
most glaringly profligate and unrighteous 
of their neighbourhood. They look to the 
ostensible marks of distinction between 
themselves and others; — and what wider 
distinction, they think, can possibly be as- 
signed, than that which obtains between 
the upright or the kind-hearted, on the one 
hand, and the ungenerous or dishonest, on 
the other ? Now, what we propose, in the 
following discourse, is to lead them to look 
a little farther, — and then they will see at 
least one point of similarity between these 
two classes, the want of one common ingre- 
dient with both, and which attaches to each 
of them a great moral defect, that can only 
be repaired by one and the same application. 

It is well when we can find out an accor- 
dancy between the actual exhibition of hu- 
man nature on the field of experience, and 
the representation that is given of this na- 
ture on the field of revelation. Now, the 
Bible every where groups the individuals 
of our species, into two general and dis- 
tinct classes, and assigns to each of them its 
appropriate designation. It tells us of the 
vessels of ivrath, and of the vessels of 
mercy ; of the travellers on a narrow path, 
and on a broad way; of the children of this 
world, and the children of light ; and, lastly, 
of men who are carnally minded, and men 
who are spiritually minded. It employs 
these terms in a meaning so extensive, that 
by each couplet of them it embraces all in- 
dividuals. There is no separate number of 
persons, forming of themselves a neutral 
class, and standing without the limits of the 
two others. And were it possible to con- 
ceive, that human nature, as it exists at pre- 
sent in the world, were laid in a map before ' 
us, you would see no intermediate ground 
between the two classes which are thus con- 
trasted in the Bible,— but these thrown into 
two distinct regions, with one clear and 
vigorous line of demarcation between them. 

We often read of this line, and we often 
read of the transition from the one to the 
other side of it. But there is no trace of 
any middle department to be met with in 
the New Testament. The alternative has 
only two terms, and ours must be the one 
or the other of them. And as surely as a 
day is coming, when all the men of our as- 
sembled world shall be found on the right 
or on the left hand of the throne of judg- 
ment — so surely do the carnal and the 
spiritual regions of human nature, stand 
apart from each other; and all the men 
who are now living on the surface of the 



194 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



world, are to be found on the right, or on 
the wrong side, of the line of demarcation. 

We cannot conceive, then, a question of 
mightier interest, than the situation of this 
line, — a line which takes its own steady 
and unfaltering way through the thousand 
varieties of character that exist in the world; 
and which reduces them all to two great, 
and awfully important divisions. It marks 
off one part of the species from the other. 
We are quite aware that the terms which 
are employed to characterize the two sets 
are extremely unfashionable; and, what is 
more, are painfully offensive to many a 
mind, whose taste, and whose habits, have 
not yet been brought under the overpow- 
ering controul of God's own message ex- 
pressed in God's own language. They are 
such terms as would be rejected with a posi- 
tive sensation of disgust by many a mor- 
alist, and would be thought by many more, 
to impart the blemish of a most hideous de- 
formity, to his eloquent and philosophical 
pages. It is curious here to observe how 
much the Maker of the human mind, and 
the mere observer of the human mind, dif- 
fer in their views and representations of 
the same object. But when told, on the 
highest of all authority, that to be car- 
nally minded is death, and to be spiritually 
minded is life and peace, we are compelled 
to acknowledge with a feeling of earnest- 
ness, greater than mere curiosity can in- 
spire, that the application of these terms, 
is a question of all others the most deeply 
affecting to the fears and the wishes of hu- 
manity. 

In the prosecution of this question, let 
me attempt to bring a succession of charac- 
ters before you, most of which must have 
met your own distinct and familiar obser- 
vation ; and of which, while exceedingly 
various in their complexion, we hope to 
succeed in convincing you, that the love of 
God, at least, ts not in them. If this can 
be made out against them, it may be con- 
sidered as experimentally fixing to which 
of the two great divisions of humanity they 
belong. All who love God, may have bold- 
ness when they think of the day of judg- 
ment, because, like unto God, who himself 
is love, they will be pronounced meet for 
the enjoyment, and the fellowship of him 
through eternity. And they who want this 
affection, when they die shall be turned 
into hell. They shall be found to possess 
that carnal mind which is enmity against 
God. So that upon the single point of 
whether they possess this love or not, 
hinges the question which I have just now 
started, — a question surely which it were 
better for every man to decide at the bar 
of conscience now, ere it comes under the 
review of that dread tribunal which is to 
award to him his everlasting habitation. 

I. Let us first offer to your notice, a 



man living in the grossness of animal in- 
dulgence, — a man, the field of whose en- 
joyments is altogether sensual, — and who, 
therefore, in addition to the charge he 
brings down upon himself, of directly vio- 
lating the law of God, is regarded by the 
admirers of what is tasteful and refined in 
the human character, as a loathsome object 
of contemplation. There is something more 
here than mere wickedness of character to 
excite the regret or detestation of the godly. 
There is sordidness of character to excite the 
disgust of the elegant. And let us just add 
one feature more to this portrait of deform- 
ity. Let us suppose the man in question to 
have so abandoned himself to the impulses 
of selfishness, that no feeling and no prin- 
ciple whatever, restrains him from yielding 
to its temptations, — that to obtain the gra- 
tification he is in quest of, he can violate 
all the decencies, and bid away from him 
all the tendernesses of our common hu- 
manity, — that he has the hardihood to set 
the terrors of the civil law at defiance, — 
and that, for the money which ministers to 
every earthly appetite, he can even go so 
far, as to steel his heart against the atrocity 
of a murder. When we have thus set be- 
fore you, the picture of one feasting on the 
prey of his inhuman robberies, we have 
surely brought our description as far down 
in the scale of character, as it can well be 
carried. And we have done so, on purpose 
that you may be at no loss to assign the 
place which belongs to him. It were a 
monstrous supposition altogether, that either 
the love of gratitude, or the love of moral 
esteem for the Deity, were to be found in 
the bosom of such a man. He, then, of all 
others, is not spiritual but carnal ; nor do 
we anticipate a single dissenting voice 
when we say, that whatever be the doubts 
and the delusions which may prevail about 
men of another aspect, the man whose 
habits and pursuits have now been sketched 
to you, stands on the wrong side of the line 
of demarcation. 

We are far from saying, that a man of 
such a character as this is of frequent oc- 
currence in society. We merely set him 
up as a kind of starting-post, for the future 
train of our argument. It is a mighty ad- 
vantage, in every discussion, to have a clear 
and undisputed outset, — and we trust, that, 
if thus far we have kept cordially by the 
side of each other, we shall not cast out by 
the way, in the progress of our remaining 
observations. 

II. Let us now proceed, then, to detach 
one offensive feature from the character of 
him, whom we have thus set before you, 
as a compound of many abominations. 
Let us leave entire all his dishonesty, and 
all his devotedness to the pleasures of sense, 
but soften and transform his heart to such 
a degree, that he would recoil from the 



XII.] 



DEPRAVITY OF 



HUMAN NATURE. 



195 



perpetration of a murder. This is a differ- 
ent portrait from the one which we formerly 
exhibited. There is in it an instinctive 
horror at an act of violence, which did not 
belong to the other;— and the question we 
have now to put, is, Has the man who owns 
this improved representation, become, on 
this single difference, a spiritual man 1 We 
answer this question by another. Is the 
difference that we have now assigned to 
him, due to the love of God, or to such a 
principle of loyal subjection to his authority, 
as this love is sure to engender ? You will 
not call him spiritual from the mere exist- 
ence of a feeling which would rise spon- 
taneously in his heart, even though the 
Father of spirits were never thought of. 
We appeal to your own consciousness of 
what passes within you, if the heart do not 
experience the movement of many a con- 
stitutional feeling, altogether unaccompa- 
nied by any reference of the mind, to the 
love, or to the character, or even to the 
existence of God. Are you not quite sen- 
sible, that though the idea of a God lay in 
a state of dormancy for hours and for days 
together, many of the relentings of nature 
would, in the meanwhile, remain with you? 
For the preservation and the order of so- 
ciety, God has been kind enough to implant 
in the bosom of man, many a natural pre- 
dilection, and many a natural horror, — of 
which he feels the operation, and the people 
of his neighbourhood enjoy the advantage, 
at the very time that one and all of them, 
unmindful of God, are walking in the coun- 
sel of their own hearts, and after the sight 
of their own eyes. He has done the same 
thing to the inferior animals. He has en- 
dowed them with a principle of attachment 
to their offspring, in virtue of which, they, 
generally speaking, would recoil from the 
murder of their young with as determined 
an abhorrence, as you would do from the 
murder of a fellow-creature. You would 
not surely say of the irrational instinct, 
that because amiable, or useful, or pleasing 
to contemplate, there is any thing spiritual 
in the impulse it communicates. Then do 
not offer a violence both to Scripture and 
philosophy, by confounding, in the mind 
of man, principles which are distinct from 
each other. Do not say, that he is spiritual, 
merely because he is moving in obedience 
to his constitutional tendencies. Do not 
say, that he is not carnal, while all that he 
has done, or abstained from doing, may be 
done or abstained from, though he lived 
without God in the world. And go not to 
infer, while the pleasures of sense are the 
idols of his every affection, that because he 
would shudder to purchase them, at the 
expence of another's blood, he, on that 
single account, may be looked on as a 
spiritual man, and as standing on the right 
side of the line of demarcation. 



III. All this may be looked upon, as too 
indisputable for argument. And yet it is 
the very principle which, if carried to its 
fair extent, and brought faithfully home to 
the conscience, would serve to convince of 
ungodliness, the vast majority of this world's 
generations. If a natural recoil from mur- 
der, may be experienced by the bosom, in 
which there exists no love to God, — why 
may not this natural recoil be carried still 
farther, and yet the love of God be just as 
absent from the bosom as before ? There are 
other dishonesties, of a far less outrageous 
character, than that by which you would 
commit an act of depredation ; and other 
cruelties far less enormous, than that by 
which you would imbrue your hand in an- 
other's blood, — which still the generality of 
men would revolt from constitutionally, 
and that, too, without the movement of any 
affection for their God, or even so much as 
any thought of him. We have only to con- 
ceive the softening of a further transforma- 
tion, to take place on the man with whom 
we set out at the beginning of our argu- 
ment ; and he may thus become, like the 
man we read of in the parable, who took 
comfort to himself in the security, that he 
had goods laid up for many years, and at 
the same time is not charged either with 
violence or dishonesty in the acquirement 
of them. He is charged with nothing but 
a devoted attachment to wealth, and to the 
pleasures which that wealth can purchase. 
And yet, what an awful reckoning did he 
come under ! He seems to have been just 
such a man as Ave can be at no loss to meet 
with every day in the range of our fami- 
liar acquaintances, — enjoying themselves in 
easy and comfortable abundance ; but at an 
obvious and unquestionable distance from 
any thing that can be called atrocity of 
character. There is not one of them, per- 
haps, who would not recoil from an act of 
barbarity; and who would not be moved 
with honest indignation, at the tale of per- 
fidy, or of violence. They live in a placid 
course of luxury, and good humour ; and 
we are far from charging them with any 
thing which the world calls monstrous, — 
when we say, that the Father of spirits is 
unminded, and unregarded by them, and 
that the good things of the world are their 
gods. If it be a vain superfluity of argu- 
ment to prove, that a man may not be 
spiritual, and yet be endowed with such a 
degree of natural tenderness, as to recoil 
from the perpetration of a murder, — then 
it is equally indisputable, that a man may 
not be spiritual, though endowed with such 
a degree of natural tenderness, as to recoil 
from many lesser acts of cruelty, or in- 
justice. In other words, he may be a very 
fair every-day character ; and if it be so 
sure a principle, that a man may not be a 
murderer, and yet be carnal, then let one 



196 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE, 



I SERM. 



and all of you look well to your own se- 
curity ; for it is the very principle which 
might be employed, to shake the thousands 
and tens of thousands of ordinary men, out 
of the security in which they have en- 
trenched themselves. 

IV. But to proceed in this work of trans- 
formation. Let us now conceive a still 
more exquisite softening of affection and 
tenderness, to be thrown over the whole of 
our imaginary character. We thus make 
another step, and another departure, from 
the original specimen. By the first step, 
the mind is made to feel a kind of revolting, 
at the atrocity of a murder ; and the cha- 
racter ceases to be monstrous. By the 
second, the mind is made to share in all 
the common antipathies of our nature, to 
what is cruel and unfeeling ; and it is thus 
wrought up to the average of character 
which obtains in society. By the third 
step the mind is endowed with the warmer 
and more delicate sympathies of our nature, 
and thus rises to a more exalted place in 
the scale of character. It becomes posi- 
tively amiable. You look to him, who owns 
all these graceful sensibilities, even as the 
Saviour looked unto the young man of the 
gospels, and, like the Saviour, you love him. 
Who can, in fact, refrain from doing homage 
to such a lovely exhibition of all that is 
soothing in humanity ; and whether he be 
employed in mingling his tears, and his 
charities, with the unfortunate, or in shed- 
ding a gentle lustre over the retirement of 
his own family, even orthodoxy herself, 
stern and unrelenting as she is conceived 
to be, cannot find it in her heart to frown 
upon him. But, feeling is one thing, and 
truth is another ; and when the question is 
put, Do all these sensibilities, heightened 
and adorned as they are, on the upper walks 
of society, constitute a spiritual man? — it 
is not by a sigh, or an aspiration of tender- 
ness, that we are to answer it. We are 
put 'm a cool exercise of the understand- 
ing , and we cannot close it against the fact, 
that £11 these feelings may exist apart from 
the love of God, and apart from the reli- 
gious principle, — that the idea of a God 
may be expunged from the heart of man, 
and yet that heart be still the seat of the 
same constitutional impulses as ever, — that 
in reference to the realities of the unseen 
and spiritual world, the mind may be an 
entire blank, and there, at the same time, 
be room in it for the play of kindly and be- 
nevolent, emotions. We commit these truths 
to your own experience, and if carried faith- 
fully to the conscience, they may chase away 
another of the delusions which encompass 
it. There is no fear of me, for I have a 
feeling heart, is a plea which they put a 
decisive end to. This feeling heart, if un- 
accompanied by any sense of God, is no 
better evidence of a spiritual man, than is 



the circulation of the blood. We are far from 
refusing it the homage of our tenderness. We 
feel a love to it, but we v/ill not make a lie 
about it. We can make no more of it, than 
Scripture and experience enable us to do. 
And, if it be true, that a man's heart may 
be the habitual seat of kind affections, while 
an affection for God is habitually away 
from it, if it be true that no man can be 
destitute of this affection, and at the same 
time be a spiritual man, — if it be true, that 
he who is not spiritual, is carnal, and that 
the carnally-minded cannot inherit the 
kingdom of God ; — then the necessity lies 
upon us : he is still in the region and 
shadow of death ; and if he refuse the argu- 
ments and invitations of the gospel, calling 
him over to another region than that which 
he now occupies, he must just be numbered 
among those more beauteous wrecks of our 
fallen nature, which are destined to perish 
and be forgotten. 

V. But let us go still farther. Let us 
suppose the heart to be furnished, not 
merely with the finest sensibilities of our 
nature, but with its most upright and 
honourable principles. Let us conceive a 
man whose palse beats high with the pride 
of integrity ; whose every word carries 
security along with it ; whose faithfulness 
in the walks of business has stood the test 
of many fluctuations; who, amid all the 
varieties of his fortune, has nobly sustained 
the glories of an untainted character ; and 
whom we see by the salutations of the 
market-place, to be acknowledged and re- 
vered by all, as the most respectable of the 
citizens. Now, which of the two great re- 
gions of human character shall we make him 
to occupy? This question depends upon 
another. May all this manly elevation of 
soul, and of sentiment, stand disunited in 
the same heart, with the influence of the 
authority of God, or with that love of God 
which is the keeping of his commandments? 
The discerning eye of Hume saw that it 
could; and he tells us that natural honesty 
of temper is a better security for the faith- 
fulness of a man's doings, than all the au- 
thority of religious principle over him. We 
deny the assertion; but the distinction be- 
tween the two principles on which it pro- 
ceeds, is indisputable. There is a principle 
of honour, apart in the human mind alto- 
gether, from any reference to the realities 
of a spiritual world. It varies in the in- 
tensity of its operation, with different indi- 
viduals. It has the chance of being more 
entire, when kept aloof from the tempta- 
tions of poverty : and therefore it is, that 
we more frequently meet with it in the 
upper and middling classes of life. And 
we can conceive it so strong in its original 
influence, or so grateful to the possessor 
from the elevating consciousness which 
goes along with it, or so nourished by the 



XH.J 



DEPRAVITY OF 



HUMAN NATURE. 



197 



voice of an applauding world, as to throw 
all the glories of a romantic chivalry over 
the character of him, with whom God is as 
much imthought of, as he is unseen. We 
are far from refusing our admiration. But 
we are saying, that the Being who brought 
this noble specimen of our nature into 
existence; who fitted his heart for all its 
high and generous emotions ; who threw a 
theatre around him for the display and ex- 
ercise of his fine moral accomplishments ; 
who furnished each of his admirers with a 
heart to appreciate his worth, and a voice to 
pour into his ear the flattering expression of 
it ; — the Being whose hand upholds and per- 
petuates the whole of this illustrious exhi- 
bition, may all the while be forgotten, and 
unnoticed as a thing of no consequence. 
We are merely saying, that the man whose 
heart is occupied with a sentiment of 
honour, and is at the same time unoccu- 
pied with a sense of Him, who is the first 
and greatest of spiritual beings, is not a 
spiritual man. But, if not spiritual, we are 
told in the Bible, that there are only two 
terms in the alternative, and he must be 
carnal : and the God whom he has disre- 
garded in time, will find, that in the praises 
and enjoyments of time, he has gotten all 
his reward, and that he owes him no re- 
compense in eternity. 

We appeal to the state of the public mind 
some years ago, on the subject of Africa, 
as a living exemplification of the whole ar- 
gument. u Love thy neighbour as thyself," 
says the Bible; and this precept, coming 
with all the force of its religious influence 
upon the hearts of men, who carry their 
respects to the will of a spiritual and un- 
seen God, have urged them on, and with 
noble effect, to the abolition of the deadliest 
mischief that was ever let loose upon the 
species. And whether we look to the Qua- 
kers, who originated the cause, or to him 
who pioneered the cause, or to him who 
plead the cause, or to him who has impreg- 
nated with such a moral charm, the atmo- 
sphere of his country, that no human crea- 
ture can breathe of its air without taking in 
the generous inspiration of liberty along 
with it, — we cannot fail to observe, that one 
and all of them speak the language, and 
evince the tastes, and are not ashamed to 
own their most entire and decided pre- 
ference for the objects of spiritual men. 
There is an evident sense of religious duty, 
which gives the tone of Christianity, and 
throws the aspect of sacredness over the 
whole of their doings ; and the unbamed 
perseverance of the many years they had 
to struggle with difficulties, and to spend 
in the weariness of ever recurring disap- 
pointments, bears striking proof to the un- 
quenchable energy of the Christian princi- 
ple within them. But who can deny the 
large and important contributions which 



came in upon the cause from other quar- 
ters ? We hold it quite consistent with the 
truth of human nature, to aver, that in this en- 
lightened country, other principles may have 
lent their aid to the cause, and, apart from 
Christianity altogether, may have sent a com- 
manding influence into the hearts of some 
of its ablest and most efficient supporters. 
There is nothing in the presence of Chris- 
tian principle to quell the impassioned fer- 
vour of our desires after right objects; but 
the absence of Christian principle does not 
necessarily extinguish this fervour. When 
we look back to the animating ferment of 
the British public, on the subject of Africa, 
we will ever contend, that a feeling of obli- 
gation to a spiritual being, was the ingre- 
dient which set it a going, and which kept 
it a going. But who can deny the exist- 
ence, and the powerful operation of other 
ingredients ? An instinctive horror at cruel- 
ty, is a separate and independent attribute 
of the heart, and sufficient of itself to in- 
spire the deepest tones of that eloquence 
which sounded in parliament, and issued 
from the press, and spread an infection over 
all the provinces of the empire, and mus- 
tered around the cause, thousands and tens 
of thousands of our rallying population, 
and gave such an energy to the public 
voice, that all the resisting jealousies and 
interests of the country were completely 
overborne; — and hence the interesting 
spectacle, of carnal and spiritual men lend- 
ing their respective energies to the accom- 
plishment of one object, and securing, by 
their success, a higher name for Britain in 
the world, than all the wisdom of her coun- 
sels, and all the pride of her victories can 
ever achieve for her. 

Were it our only aim to carry the acqui- 
escence of the understanding, there might 
be a danger in affirming, and urging, and 
illustrating to excess, the position, that we 
want to establish among you; — and it 
were, perhaps, better, to limit ourselves to 
one simple delivery of the argument. But 
our aim is, if possible, to affect the con- 
science, and to accomplish this object, not 
with one, but with many individuals. And 
when it is reflected, that one developement 
of the principle may come home more for- 
cibly to some man's experience than an- 
other, we must beg to be excused for one 
recurrence more to a topic, so pregnant of 
consequence to your everlasting interests. 
There is a sadly meagre and frivolous con- 
ception of human sinfulness, that is preva- 
lent amongst you, — and it goes to foster 
this delusion, that when we look abroad on 
the face of society, we must be struck with 
the diversity of character which obtains 
among the individuals who compose it. 
Some there are, who, in the estimation of 
the world, are execrable for their crimes, 
but others, who, in the same estimation 



198 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



are illustrious for their virtues. In that 
general mass of corruption, to which we 
would reduce our unfortunate species, is 
there, it may be asked, no solitary example 
of what is pure, and honourable, and love- 
ly ? Do we never meet with the charity 
which melts at suffering ; with the honesty 
which disdains, and is proudly superior 
to falsehood ; with the active beneficence 
which gives to others its time and its la- 
bour; with the modesty which shrinks 
from notice, and gives all its sweetness 
to retirement; with the gentleness which 
breathes peace to all, and throws a beauti- 
ful lustre over the walks of domestic socie- 
ty ? If we find these virtues to be some- 
times exhibited, is not this an argument 
against the doctrine of such an entire, and 
unmitigated depravity, as we have been 
contending for ? Will it not serve to re- 
deem humanity from that sweeping, indis- 
criminate charge of corruption, which is 
so often advanced against it, in all the 
pride and intolerance of orthodoxy ? What 
better evidence can be given of our love 
to God, than our adherence to his law? 
And are not the virtues which we have just 
now specified, part of that law ? Are not 
they the very virtues which his authority 
requires of us, and which imparts such a 
charm to the morality of the New Testa- 
ment f 

Now, it carries us at once to the bottom 
of this delusion, to observe, that though the 
religious principle can never exist, without 
the amiable and virtuous conduct of the 
New Testament ; yet, that conduct may, in 
some measure, be maintained, without the 
religious principle. A man may be led to 
precisely the same conduct, on the impulse 
of many different principles. He may be 
gentle, because it is a prescription of the 
divine law : — or, he may be gentle, because 
he is naturally of a peaceful, or indolent 
constitution: — or, he may be gentle, be- 
cause he sees it to be an amiable graceful- 
ness, with which he wishes to adorn his 
own character ; — or, he may be gentle, be- 
cause it is the ready way of perpetuating 
-the friendship of those around him; — or, 
he may be gentle, because taught to ob- 
serve it, as a part of courtly and fashiona- 
ble deportment —and what was implanted 
by education, may come, in time, to be 
confirmed, by habit and experience. Now, 
it is only under the first of these principles, 
that there is any religion in gentleness. 
The other principles may produce all the 
outward appearance of this virtue, and 
much even of its inward complacency, and 
yet be as distinct from the religious princi- 
ple, as they are distinct from one another. 
To infer the strength of the religious prin- 
ciple, from the taste of the human mind 
for what is graceful and lovely in charac- 
ter, would just be as preposterous, as to in- 



fer it from the admiration of a fine picture, 
or a cultivated landscape. They are not 
to be confounded. They occupy a differ- 
ent place, even in the classifications of phi- 
losophy. We do not deny, that the admi- 
ration of what is fine in character, is a 
principle of a higher order, than a taste for 
the sensualities of the epicure. But they, 
one and all of them, stand at a wide dis- 
tance from the religious principle: and 
whether it be taste, or temper, or the love 
of popularity, or the high impulse of hon- 
ourable feeling, or even the love of truth, 
and a natural principle of integrity, — the 
virtues in question may be so unconnected 
with religion, as to flourish in the world, 
and be rewarded by its admiration, even 
though God were expunged from the be- 
lief, and immortality from the prospects, 
of the species. 

The virtues, then, to which the enemies 
of our doctrine make such a confident ap- 
peal, may have no force whatever in the 
argument, — because, properly speaking, 
they may not be exemplifications of the 
religious principle. If you do what is vir- 
tuous, because God tells you so, then, and 
then only, do you give us a fair example 
of the authority of religion over your prac- 
tice. But, if you do it merely because it 
is lovely, because it is honourable, or be- 
cause it is a fine moral accomplishment, — 
we will not refuse the testimony of our ad- 
miration, but we cannot submit to such 
an error, either of conception, or of lan- 
guage, as to allow that there is any reli- 
gion in all this. These qualities have our 
utmost friendship ; and we give the most 
substantial evidence of this, when, instead 
of leaving them to' their own solitary claims 
upon the human heart, we call in the aid 
of religion, and support them by its autho- 
rity: "Whatsoever things are pure, or love- 
ly, or honest, or of good report; if there 
be any virtue, if there be any praise, think 
of these things." But we will not admit, 
that the mere circumstance of their being 
lovely, supersedes the authority of religion; 
nor can we endure such an injustice to the 
Author of all that is graceful, both in 
nature and morality, as that the native 
charms of virtue should usurp, in our ad- 
miration, the place of God— of him who 
gave to virtue all its charms, and formed the 
heart of man to love and to admire them. 

Be not deceived, then, into a rejection of 
that doctrine which forms the great basis 
of a sinner's religion, by the specimens of 
moral excellence which are to be met with 
in society ; or by the praise which your 
own virtues extort from an applauding 
neighbourhood. Virtue may exist, and in 
such a degree too, as to constitute it a love- 
ly object in the eyes of the world, but if 
there be in it no reference of the mind to 
the will of God, there is no religion in it. 

v 



XII.] 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



199 



Such virtue as this has its reward in its na- 
tural consequences, in the admiration of 
others, or in the delights of conscious satis- 
faction. But we cannot see why God will 
reward it in the capacity of your master, 
when his service was not the principle of 
it, and you were therefore not acting at all 
the part of a servant to him, — nor do we 
see how he can reward it in the capacity 
of your judge, when, in the whole process 
of virtuous feeling, and virtuous sentiment, 
and virtuous conduct, you carried in your 
heart no reference whatever, for a single 
moment, to him as your lawgiver. We do 
not deny that there are many such exam- 
ples of virtue in the world ; but then we in- 
sist upon it, that they cannot be put down 
to the account of religion. They often 
may, and actually do, exist in a state of 
entire separation from the religious princi- 
ple ; and in that case, they go no farther 
than to prove that your taste is unvitiated, 
that your temper is amiable, that your so- 
cial dispositions promote the peace and 
welfare of society: and they will be re- 
warded with its approbation. Now, it is 
well that you act your part as a member of 
society; and religion, by making this one 
of its injunctions, gives us the very best 
security, that wherever its influence pre- 
vails, it will be done in the most perfect 
manner. But the point we labour to im- 
press is, that a man may be what we all 
understand by a good member of society, 
without the authority of God, as his legis- 
lator, being either recognized or acted upon. 
We do not say that his error lies in being 
a good member of society. This, though 
only a circumstance at present, is a very 
fortunate one. The error lies in his having 
discarded the authority of God, or rather, 
in his never having admitted the influence 
of that authority over his heart, or his 
practice. We want to guard him against 
the delusion, that the principle which he 
has, can ever be accepted as a substitute 
for the principle he has not, — or, that the 
very highest sense of duty, which his situ- 
ation as a member of society, impresses 
upon his feelings, will ever be received as 
an atonement for wanting that sense of 
duty to God, which he ought to feel in the 
far more exalted capacity of his servant, 
and candidate for his approbation. We 
stand on the high ground, that he is the 
subject of the Almighty, — nor shall we 
shrink from declaring the whole extent of 
the principle. Let his path in society be 
ever so illustrious, by the virtues which 
adorn it; let every word, and every per- 
formance, be as honourable as a proud 
sense of integrity can make it ; let the sa- 
lutations of the market-place mark him out 
as the most respectable of the citizens; 
and the gratitude of a thousand families 
ring the praises of his beneficence to the 



world : If the actor in this splendid exhi- 
bition, carry in his mind no reference to 
the authority of God, we do not hesitate to 
pronounce him unworthy, — nor shall all 
the execrations of generous, but mistaken 
principle, deter us from putting forth our 
hand to strip him of his honours. What ! 
is the world to gaze in admiration on this 
fine spectacle of virtue ; and are we to be 
told that the Being, who gave such facul- 
ties to one of his children, and provides 
the theatre for their exercise, — that the Be- 
ing, who called this moral scene into ex- 
istence, and gave it all its beauties, — that 
he is to be forgotten, and neglected as of 
no consequence ? Shall we give a deceit- 
ful lustre to the virtues of him who is un- 
mindful of his God, — and with all the 
grandeur of eternity before us,' can we 
turn to admire those short-lived exertions, 
which only shed a fleeting brilliancy over 
a paltry and perishable scene ? It is true, 
that he who is counted faithful in little/ 
will also be counted faithful in much ; and 
when God is the principle of his fidelity, 
the very humblest wishes of benevolence 
will be rewarded. But its most splendid 
exertions without this principle, have no 
inheritance in heaven. Human praise, and 
human eloquence, may acknowledge it; 
but the Discerner of the heart never will. 
The heart may be the seat of every amia- 
ble feeling, and every claim which comes 
to it in the shape of human misery may 
find a welcome ; but if the love of God be 
not there, it is not right with God, — and he 
who owns it, will die in his sins : he is in a 
state of impenitency. 

Having thus disposed of those virtues 
which exist in a state of independence on 
the religious principle, we must be forced 
to recur to the doctrine of human depravity, 
in all its original aggravation. Man is cor- 
rupt, and the estrangement of his heart from 
God, is the decisive evidence of it. Every 
day of his life the first commandment of 
the law is trampled on, — and it is that com- 
mandment on which the authority of the 
whole is suspended. His best exertions are 
unsound in their very principle ; and as the 
love of God reigns not within him, all that 
has usurped the name of virtue, and de- 
ceived us by its semblance, must be a mock- 
ery and a delusion. 

We shall conclude with three observa- 
tions: First, there is nothing more justly 
fitted to revolt the best feelings of the human 
heart against orthodoxy, than when any 
thing is said to its defence, which tends to 
mar the credit or the lustre of a moral 
accomplishment so lovely as benevolence. 
Let it be observed, then, that substantial 
benevolence is rarely, if ever, to be found 
apart from piety, — and that piety is but the 
hypocrisy of a name, when benevolence, in 
all the unweariedness of its well doing, does 



200 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



not go along with it. Benevolence may 
make some brilliant exhibitions of herself 
without the instigation of the religious prin- 
ciple. But in these cases you seldom have 
the touchstone of a painful sacrifice, — and 
you never have a spiritual aim, after the 
good of our imperishable nature. It is easy 
to indulge a constitutional feeling. It is 
easy to make a pecuniary surrender. It is 
easy to move gently along, amid the visits 
and the attentions of kindness, when every 
eye smiles welcome, and the soft whispers 
of gratitude minister their pleasing reward, 
and flatter you into the delusion that you 
are an angel of mercy. But give us the 
benevolence of him, who can ply his faithful 
task in the face of every discouragement, — 
who can labour in scenes where there is no 
brilliancy whatever to reward him, — whose 
kindness is that sturdy and abiding princi- 
ple which can weather all the murmurs of 
ingratitude, and all the provocations of dis- 
honesty, — who can find his way through 
poverty's putrid lan^s, and depravity's most 
nauseous and disgusting receptacles, — who 
can maintain the uniform and placid tem- 
per, within the secrecy of his own home, 
and amid the irksome annoyances of his 
own family, — who can endure hardships 
as a good soldier of Christ Jesus, — whose hu- 
manity acts with as much vigour amid the 
reproach, and the calumny, and the con- 
tradiction of sinners, as when soothed and 
softened by the poetic accompaniment of 
weeping orphans and interesting cottages, — 
and, above all, who labours to convert sin- 
ners, to subdue their resistance of the gos- 
pel, and to spiritualize them into a meetness 
for the inheritance of the saints. We main- 
tain, that no such benevolence, realizing all 
these features, exists, without a deeply seated 
principle of piety lying at the bottom of it. 
Walk from Dan to Beersheba, and, away 
from Christianity, and beyond the circle of 
its influences, there is positively no such 
benevolence to be found. The patience, the 
meekness, the difficulties of such a benevo- 
lence, cannot be sustained without the in- 
fluence of a heavenly principle, — and when 
all that decks the theatre of this world is 
withdrawn, what else is there but the mag- 
nificence of eternity, to pour a glory over 
its path, and to minister encouragement in 
the midst of labours unnoticed by human 
eye, and unrewarded by human testimony? 
Even the most splendid enterprizes of be- 
nevolence, which the world ever witnessed, 
can be traced to the operation of what the 
world laughs at, as a quakerish and metho- 
distical piety. And we appeal to the abo- 
lition of the slave trade, and the still nobler 
abolition of vice and ignorance, which is 
now accomplishing amongst the uncivilized 
countries of the earth, for the proof, that 
in good will to men, as well as glory to 
God, they are the men of piety who bear 



away the palm of superiority and of tri- 
umph. 

But, Secondly, If all Scripture and all 
observation, are on the side of our text, 
should not this be turned by each of us into 
a personal concern ? Should it not be taken 
up, and pursued, as a topic in which we all 
have a deep individual interest ? Should it 
not have a more permanent hold of us, than 
a mere amusing general speculation ? Are 
not prudence, and anticipation, and a sense 
of danger, all linked with the conclusion we 
have attempted to press upon you? In one 
word, if there be such a thing as a moral 
government on the part of God, — if there 
be such a thing as the authority of a high 
and divine legislature, — if there oe such a 
thing as a throne in heaven, and a judge sit- 
ting on that throne, — should not the ques- 
tion, What shall I do to be saved? come 
with all its big and deeply felt significancy 
into the heart and conscience of every one 
of us ? We know that there is a very loose 
and general security upon this subject, — that 
the question, if it ever be suggested at all, 
is disposed of in an easy, indolent, and su- 
perficial way, by some such presumption, 
as that God is merciful, and that should be 
enough to pacify us. But why recur to any 
presumption, for the purpose of bringing 
the question to a settlement, when, upon 
this very topic, we are favoured with an 
authoritative message from God, — when an 
actual embassy has come from him, and 
that on the express errand of reconcilia- 
tion? — when the records of this embassy 
have been collected into a volume, within 
the reach of all who will stretch forth their 
hand to it ; — when the obvious expedient of 
consulting this record is before us? And 
surely, if what God says of himself, is of 
higher signification than what we think 
him to be, and if he tell us not merely that 
he is merciful, but that there is a particular 
way in which he chooses to be so ; — nothing 
remains for us but submissively to learn 
that way, and obediently to go along with 
it. But he actually tells us, that there is no 
other name given under heaven, whereby 
man can be saved, but the name of Jesus. 
He tells, that it is only in Christ, that he 
has reconciled the world unto himself. He 
tells us, that our alone redemption is in him 
whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation 
through faith in his blood, — that he might 
be just, while the justifier of him who be- 
lieveth in Jesus ; — and surely, we must either 
give up the certainty of the record, or count 
these to be faithful sayings, and worthy of 
all acceptation. 

Lastly, The question may occur, after 
having established the fact of human cor- 
ruption, and recommended a simple acqui- 
escence in the Saviour for forgiveness, What 
becomes of the corruption after this? Must 
we just be doing with it as an obstinate, 



XIII.] 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



201 



peculiarity of our nature, bearing down all 
our powers of resistance, and making every 
struggle with it hopeless and unavailing? 
For the answer to this question, we commit 
you, as before, to the record. He who is in 
Christ Jesus is a new creature. Sin has no 
longer dominion over him. That very want 
which constituted the mam violence of the 
disease, is made up to him. He wanted the 
love of God ; and this love is shed abroad in 
his heart by the Holy Ghost. He wanted 
the love of his neighbour ; but God enters 
into a covenant with him, by which he puts 
this law in his heart, and writes it in his 
mind. The spirit is given to them who ask 
it in faith, and the habitual prayer, of, Sup- 
port me in the performance of this duty, — 
or, Carry me in safety through this trial of 
my heart and of my principles —is heard 
with acceptance, and answered with power. 
The power of Christ is made to rest on those 
who look to him ; and they will find to be 
their experience what Paul found to be his, — 
they will be able to do all things through 
Christ strengthening them. Now, the ques- 
tion we have to put is, — Tell us, if all this 



sound strange, and mysterious, and foreign 
to the general style of your conceptions ? 
Then be alarmed for your safety. The 
things you thus profess to be strange to you, 
are not the peculiar notions of one man, or 
the still more peculiar phraseology of an- 
other. They are the very notions and the 
very phraseology of the* Bible, — and you, 
by your antipathy or disregard to them, 
bring yourselves under precisely the same 
reckoning with God, that you do with a dis- 
tant acquaintance, whom you insult by re- 
turning his letter unopened, or despise, by 
suffering it to lie beside you unread and un- 
attended to. In this indelible word of God, 
you will meet with the free offer of forgive- 
ness for the past, and a provision laid before 
you. by which all who make use of it, are 
carried forward to amendment, and pro- 
gressive virtue for the future. They are 
open to all, and at the taking of all ; but in 
proportion to the frankness, and freeness, 
and universality of the offer, will be the 
severity of that awful threatening to them 
who despise it. How shall they escape, if 
they neglect so great a salvation ? 



SERMON XIII. 



The natural Enmity of the Mind against God, 

11 The carnal mind is enmity against God." — Romans viii. 7. 



We should be blinding ourselves against 
the light of experience, did we deny of 
many of our acquaintances, that they have 
either brought into the world, or have ac- 
quired, by a natural process of education, 
such a gentleness of temper, such a docility, 
such a taste for the amiable and the kind, 
such an honourable sense of integrity, such 
a feeling sympathy for the wants, and mis- 
fortunes of others, that it would not be easy, 
and what is more, we may venture to say, 
from the example of our Saviour, who, when 
he looked to the young man, loved him, 
that it would positively not be right, to with- 
hold from them our admiration and our 
tenderness. Still it were a violation of all 
scriptural propriety in language, to say of 
them that they were not carnal, or not car- 
nally minded. All, by the very signification 
of the term, are carnal, whose minds either 
retain their original constitution, or have un- 
dergone no other transforming process than 
a mere process of natural education. Some 
minds are in these circumstances, more 
agreeable to look upon than others, just as 
some faces are more agreeable than others, 
to the eye. Each mind has its own pecu- 
liar character, just as each face has its own 
set of features, and its own complexion. 
2C 



But as all the varieties in the latter, from ex- 
quisite beauty to most revolting deformity, 
do not exclude from any, the one and 
universal attribute of decay, — so neither 
may all the constitutional varieties in the 
former, from the most sordid to the most 
naturally upright and amiable, exclude the 
possession of some one and universal at- 
tribute ; and it may be the very attribute 
assigned to nature in the text — even hostility 
against God. 

Let us first offer some remarks on the 
affirmation of the text, that the carnal mind 
is enmity against God, — and then shortly 
consider "how it is that the gospel of Jesus 
Christ suits its applications to this great 
moral disease. 

I. It appears a very presumptuous at- 
tempt, on the part of a human interpreter, 
I when the object which he proposes, and 
I which he erects into a separate head of 
I discussion, is to prove the assertion of the 
text. Should not the very circumstance of 
its being the assertion of the text, be proof 
enough for you ? On what better founda- 
tion can yeur belief be laid than on the 
testimony of God ? and when we come to 
understand the meaning of the thing testi- 
fied, is not the bare fact of God being the 



202 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



| SERM. 



witness of it, sufficient ground for its cre- 
dibility to rest upon ? Shall man's reason- 
ing carry a greater authority along with it 
than God's declaration? Is your faith to 
depend on the success or the failure of his 
argument? Whether he succeed in esta- 
blishing the truth of the assertion or not, 
upon independent reasonings of his own, — 
remember that by reading it out in his text, 
he has already come forward with an ar- 
gument more conclusive than any which 
his ingenuity can devise. And yet, how 
often do your convictions lie suspended on 
the ability of the preacher, and on the 
soundness of his demonstrations ? You re- 
fuse to believe truth, plainly set before you 
in the Bible, because the minister has failed 
in making out his point. Now, the truth 
of the point in question may have already 
received its decisive settlement, from the 
text delivered in your hearing. We may 
try, and take our own way of bringing the 
truth of your enmity against God, close 
and home upon your consciences. But, if 
there be truth in all the sayings of the 
Bible, enough has been already said to un- 
dermine the security of your fancied attain- 
ments. It is said, that in our nature there 
is a rooted and an embodied character of 
hostility to our Maker. This should make 
the wisest and most sufficient among you 
feel that you are poor indeed, — and let other 
expedients, to press home the melancholy 
truth fail, or be effectual as they may, this 
is surely enough to convince and to alarm 
you. 

But, though we cannot add to the truth 
of God, there is such a thing as what the 
Apostle calls making that truth manifest to 
your consciences. Your own observation 
may attest the very same truth, which God 
announces to you in his word. And if it 
be a truth, respecting the state of your own 
heart, this agreement between what God 
says you are, and what you find yourselves 
to be, is often most powerfully instrumental 
in reclaiming men to the acknowledgment 
of the truth, and bringing their heart under 
its influence. This is the very argument 
which compelled the faith of the woman 
of Samaria. " Come and see the man which 
told me all the things that ever I did; is 
not this the Christ ?" It is the very argu- 
ment by which many an unbeliever was 
convinced in the Apostle's days. The se- 
crets of his heart were made manifest, and 
so falling down on his face, he worshipped 
God, and reported that God was in them, 
of a truth. We cannot make the assertion 
in the text stronger than God has made it 
already ; but we may be able to guide your 
observations to that which is the subject of 
it — even to your own mind. We may lead 
yon to attend more closely, and to view 
more distinctly, the state of your minds, 
than vou have ever yet done. If your find- 



ing of the matter shall agree with God's 
saying about it, it may make the truth of 
the text tell with energy upon your con- 
sciences ; — and it were well for one and all 
of us, that we obtained a more overwhelm- 
ing sense of our necessities than we have 
ever yet gotten ; that we saw ourselves in 
those true colours of deformity which re- 
ally belong to us; that the inveteracy of 
our disease as sinners were more known 
and more felt by us ; that we could lift up 
the mantle of delusion, which the accom- 
plishments of nature throw over the carnal 
mind, and by which they spread a most 
bewildering gloss over all the rebelliousness 
and ingratitude of the inner man. Could 
we but make you feel your need and your 
helplessness as sinners, — could we chase 
away from you the pride and the security 
of your fancied attainments ; could we lead 
you to mourn and be in heaviness, under a 
sense of your alienations and idolatries, 
and risings of hatred against the God who 
created and who sustains you ; — then might 
we look for the overtures of the gospel being 
more thankfully listened to, more cordially 
embraced, more rejoiced in as the alone 
suitable remedy to the wants and the sore- 
nesses of your fallen nature, — then might 
we look for the attitude of self-dependence 
being broken down, and for all trust, and 
all glorying, being transferred from our- 
selves, and laid upon Jesus Christ, and him 
crucified. 

It is no proof of love to God that we do 
many things, and that too with the willing 
consent of the mind, the performance of 
which is agreeable to his law. If the same 
thing might be done upon either of two 
principles, then the doing of it may only 
prove the existence of one of these princi- 
ples, while the other has no presence or 
operation in the mind whatever. I do not 
steal, and the reason of it may be either 
that I love God, and so keep his command- 
ments, or it may be that I have honourable 
feelings, and would spurn at the disgrace- 
fulness of such an action. This is only one 
example, but the bare statement of it serves 
for a thousand more. It lets us in at once 
to the decisive fact that there are many 
principles of action applauded, and held 
in reverence, and most useful to society, 
and withal urging us to the performance of 
what, in the matter of it, is agreeable to the 
law of God, which may have a practical 
ascendency over a man whose heart is 
alienated from the love of God. Propose 
the question to yourself, Would not I do 
this good thing, or abstain from this evil 
thing, though God had no will in this mat- 
ter? If you would, then, put not down 
what is altogether due to other principles 
to the principle of love to God, or a desire 
of pleasing him. The principle upon which 
you have acted may be respectable, and 



XIII.] 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



203 



honourable, and amiable. We are not dis- 
puting all this. We are only saying, that 
it is not the love of God ; and should we 
hear any one of you assert, that I have 
nothing to reproach myself with, and that 
I give every body their own, and that I 
possess a fair character in society, and have 
done nothing to forfeit it, and that I have 
my share of generosity, and honour, and 
tenderness, and civility, our only reply is, 
that this may be very true. You may have 
a very large share of these and of other 
estimable principles, but along with the 
possession of these many things, you may 
lack one thing, and that one thing may be 
the love of God. An enlightened discerner 
of the heart may look into you, and say, 
with our Saviour in the text, t: I know you 
that you have not the love of God in you." 

It is no test whatever of your love to 
God, that you tolerate him, when he calls 
upon you to do the things which your na- 
tural principles incline you to do, and which 
you would have done at any rate. But 
when he claims that place in your affec- 
tions which you give to many of the objects 
of the world, — when he puts in for that 
share of your heart which you give to 
wealth, or pleasure, or reputation among 
men, — then is not God a weariness? and 
does not the inner man feel impatience and 
dislike at these grievous exactions; and when 
the will of God thwarts the natural current 
of your tastes and employments, is not God, 
at the moment of urging that will, with all 
the natural authority which belongs to him, 
a positive offence to you ? 

How would you like the visit of a man 
whose presence broke up some arrangement 
that you had set your heart upon ; or mar- 
red the enjoyment of some favourite scheme 
that you were going to put into execution? 
Would not you hate the visit 1 and if it were 
often repeated, — if the disappointments you 
received from this cause were frequent and 
perpetual, — if you saw a systematic design 
of thwarting you by these galling and nu- 
merous interruptions, would not you also 
cordially hate the visitor, and give the most 
substantial evidence of your hatred, too, by 
shunning him, or shutting him out ? Now, 
is not God just such a visitor ? O how many 
favourite schemes of enjoyment would the 
thought of him, and of his' will, if faithfully 
admitted to the inner chambers of the mind, 
put to flight ! How many fond calculations 
be given up about the world, the love of 
which is opposite to the love of the Father. 
How many trifling amusements behooved 
to be painfully surrendered, if a sense of 
God's will were to tell upon the conscience 
with all the energy that is due to it. How 
many darling habits abandoned, if the whole 
man were brought under the dominion of 
this imperious visitor, — how many affec- 
tions torn away from the objects on which 



they are now fastened, if his presence were 
at all times attended to, and he was regarded 
with that affection which he at all times 
demands of us ! 

This may explain a fact, which we fear 
must come near to the conscience of many 
a respectable man, and that is, the recoil 
which he has often experienced, as if from 
some object of severe and unconquerable 
aversion, when the preacher urges upon 
his thoughts some scriptural representation 
either of the will or the character of God. 
Or take this fact in another way, and in 
which it presents itself, if not more strik- 
ingly, at least more habitually; and that is, 
the undeniable circumstance of God being 
shut out of his thoughts for the great ma- 
jority of his time, and him feeling the same 
kind of ease at the exclusion, as when he 
shuts the door on the most unwelcome of his 
visitors. The reason is, that the inner man, 
busied with other objects, would positively 
be offended at the intrusion of the thought 
of God. It is because, to admit him, with 
all his high claims and spiritual require- 
ments into your mind, would be to disturb 
you in the enjoyment of objects which are 
better loved and more sought after than he. 
It is because your heart is occupied with 
idols that God is shut out of it. It is be- 
cause your heart is after another treasure. 
It is because your heart is set upon other 
things. Whether it be wealth, or amuse- 
ment, or distinction, or the ease and the 
pleasures of life, we pretend not to know ; 
but there is a something which is your god, 
to the exclusion of the great God of heaven 
and earth. The Being who is upholding 
you all the time, and in virtue of whose 
preserving hand, you live, and think, and 
enjoy, is all the while unminded and unre- 
garded by you. # You look upon him as an 
interruption. It is of no consequence to the 
argument what the occupation of your heart 
be, if it is such an occupation as excludes 
God from it. It may be what the world 
calls a vicious occupation, — the pursuits of 
a dishonest, or the debaucheries of a profli- 
gate life, — and, in this case, the world has 
no objection to stigmatize you with enmity 
against God. Or it may be what the world 
calls an innocent occupation — amusement 
to make you happy, work to earn a subsist- 
ence, business to establish a liberal provi- 
sion for your families. But your heart may 
be so given to it that God is robbed of his 
portion of your heart altogether. Or it may 
be what the world calls an honourable oc- 
cupation, — the pursuit of eminence in the 
walks of science or of patriotism ; and still 
there may be an exclusion, or a hatred of 
the God who puts in for all things being 
done to his glory. Or it may be what the 
world calls an elegant occupation, — even 
that of a mind enamoured with the taste- 
fulness of literature ; but it may be so en a- 



204 



DEPRAVITY OF 



HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERMi 



moured with this, that the God who created 
your mind, and all the tastes which are 
within it, and all the objects which are with- 
out it, and which minister to its most ex- 
quisite gratification,— this God, we say, may 
be turned away from with a feeling of the 
most nauseous antipathy, and you may give 
the most substantial evidence of your hatred 
to him, by ridding your thoughts of him al- 
together. Or, lastly, it may be what the 
world calls a virtuous occupation, even that 
of a mind bustling with the full play of its 
energies, among enterprises of charity and 
plans of public good. Yet even here, Won- 
derful as you may think it, there may be a 
total exclusion and forgetfulness of God; 
and, while the mind is filled and gratified 
with a rejoicing sense of its activity and its 
usefulness, it may be merely delighting itself 
with a constitutional gratification, — and God 
the author of that constitution, be never 
thought of, — or if thought of according to 
the holiness of his attributes, and the nature 
of that friendship, opposite to the friendship 
of the world, which he demands of us, and 
the kind of employment which forms the 
reward and the happiness of his saints in 
eternity, even the praise and the contem- 
plation of himself, — if thought of, we say, 
according to this his real character, and 
these the real requirements that he lays upon 
us, — even the man to whom the world yields 
the homage of virtue may think of his God 
with feelings of ofFensiveness and disgust. 

There is nothing monstrous in all this, to 
the men of our world, seeing that they have 
each a share in that deep and lurking un- 
godliness, which has both so vitiated our 
nature, and so blinded all who inherit this 
nature, against a sense of its enormity. But 
only conceive how it must be thought of, 
and how the contemplati<*i of it must be 
felt, among those who can look on character 
with a spiritual and intelligent estimation. 
How must the pure eye of an angel be 
moved at such a spectacle of worthless- 
ness, — and surely, in the records of heaven, 
this great moral peculiarity of our outcast 
race must stand engraven as that, which of 
all others, has the character of guilt most 
nakedly and most essentially belonging to 
it. That the bosom of a thing formed should 
feel cold or indifferent to him who formed 
it, — that not a thought or an image should 
be so unwelcome to man as that of his 
Maker, that the creature should thus turn 
round on its Creator, and eye disgust upon 
him, — that its every "breath should be en- 
venomed with hatred against him who in- 
spired it, — or, if it be not hatred, but only 
unconcern, or disinclination, that even this 
should be the real disposition of a fashioned 
and sustained being, towards the hand of 
his Preserver, — there is a a perversity here 
which time may palliate for a season, but 
which, under a universal reign of justice, 



must at length be brought out to its ade- 
quate condemnation. And on that day, 
when the earth is to be burnt up, and all its 
flatteries shall have subsided, will it be seen 
of many a heart that rejoiced in the ap^ 
plause and friendship of this world, that, 
alienated from the love of God, it was in- 
deed in the gall of bitterness, and in the 
bond of iniquity. 

Nor does it palliate the representation 
which we have now given, that a God, in 
the fancied array of poetic loveliness — that 
a God of mere natural perfection, and with- 
out one other moral attribute than the single 
attribute of indulgence — that a God, di- 
vested of all which can make him repul- 
sive to "sinners, and, for this purpose, shorn 
of all those glories, which truth and au- 
thority, and holiness, throw around his 
character — that such a God should be idol- 
ized at times by many a sentimentalist. It 
would form no deduction from our enmity 
against the true God, that we gave an occa- 
sional hour to the worship of a graven 
image, made with our own hands — and it 
is just of as little significancy to the argu- 
ment, that we feel an occasional glow of 
affection or of reverence, towards a fictitious 
being of our own imagination. If there be 
truth in the Bible, it is there where God has 
made an authentic exhibition of his nature, 
— and if God in Christ be an offence to you 
— if you dislike this way of approach— if 
you shrink from the contemplation of that 
Being, who bids you sanctify him in your 
hearts, and who claims such a preference 
in your regard, as shall dispossess your af- 
fections for all that is earthly — if you have 
no relish for the intercourse of prayer, and 
of spiritual communion with such a God — 
if your memory neither love to recal him, 
nor your fancy to dwell upon him, nor he 
be the being with whom you greatly de- 
light yourself, the habitation to which you 
resort continually, — then be assured, that 
amid the painted insignificancy of all your 
other accomplishments, your heart is not 
right with God ; and he who is the Father 
of your existence, and of all that gladdens 
it, may still be to you a loathing and an 
abomination. 

Neither does it palliate the representation 
which we have now offered, that we do 
many things with the direct object of doing 
that which is pleasing to God. It is true, 
there cannot be love where there is no de- 
sire to please ; but it is as true, that there 
may be a desire to please where there is no 
love. Why, I may both hate and fear the 
man, whom I may find it very convenient 
to please ; and to secure whose favour, I 
may practice a thousand arts of accommo- 
dation and compliance. I may comply by 
action— but instead of complying with my 
will, I may abominate the necessity which 
constrains me. I may be subject to hb 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 205 



xm.J 

pleasure in my person, and in my perform- 
ances—but you would not say, while hatred 
rankled within me, that I was subject to him 
with my mind. A sovereign may overrule 
the humours of a rebellious province, by 
the presence of his resistless military— but 
you would not say that there was any loy- 
alty in this forced subordination. He may 
compel the bondage of their actual services 
—but you would not say, that it was in 
this part of his dominions, where the prin- 
ciple of subjection to him existed in the 
minds of the people. "We have already af- 
firmed, that though our will went along with 
a number of performances, which in the 
matter of them were agreeable to God ; s 
law — this was far from an unfailing indica- 
tion of love to God ; for there may be a 
thousand other constitutional 1 * principles, 
the residence and operation of which in the 
heart may give rise to these performances, 
while there was an utter distaste, and hos- 
tility on our part to God. They may be 
done, not because God wills the doing, but 
because the doing falls in with our humour, 
or our interest, or our vanity, or our in- 
stinctive gratification. But now we are pre- 
pared to go farther, and say, that they may 
be done, because God wills the doing, and 
yet there may be an utter want of subjec- 
tion in the mind, to the law of God. The 
terror of his power may constrain you to 
many acts of obedience, even as the call, 
" Flee from the coming wrath," told on the 
disciples of John the Baptist. But obedience 
may be rendered to all the requirements of 
this prophet. Thieves and swearers, and 
sabbath-breakers, may, under the fear of the 
coming vengeance, give up their respective 
enormities, and yet their minds be alto- 
gether carnal, and utterly destitute of sub- 
jection to the law of God. There may 
be the obedience of the hand while there is 
the gall of bitterness in the heart, at the 
necessity which constrains it. It may not 
be the consenting of the mind, to the law 
of him whom you delight to please and to 
honour. Now, this is the service for which 
it is the aim of Christianity to prepare you. 
It is by putting that law, wilich was graven 
on tables of stone, upon the tables of your 
heart, that it enables you to yield that 'obe- 
dience which is acceptable to God. He is 
grieved at the reluctancy of your services. 
No performances can satisfy him, while 
your heart remains in shut and shielded 
alienation against him. What he wants, 
is to gain the friendship and the confi- 
dence of his creatures; and he feels all the 
concern of a wounded and mortified fa- 
ther when he knocks at the door of your 
heart and finds its affections to be away 
from him. He condescends to plead the 
matter, and with the tenderness of a dis- 
appointed father, does he say, "Wherein 
have I wearied you, O children of Israel, 



testify against me ?" You may fear him ; 
you may heap sacrifices upon his altar : 
you may bring the outer man to something 
like a slavish obedience, at his bidding, but 
till your heart be subdued, by that great 
process, which all who are his spiritual sub- 
jects must undergo, you are carnal, and 
you do not love him. Your obedience is 
like a body without a soul. The very prin- 
ciple wmich gives it all its value, is wanting. 
It is this, w r hich turns the whole to bitter- 
ness. It is this, which, w r ith all the bustling 
activity of your services, keeps you dead in 
trespasses and sins. It is this which mars 
every religious performance, and imparts 
the character of rebelliousness to every one 
item, in the list of your plausible and osten- 
tatious duties. There is not one of them 
which is not accompanied with an act of 
disobedience, and that too, to the first and 
greatest commandment, by Avhich we are 
called upon to love the Lord with all our 
heart, strength, and soul. Though the hand 
should be subject, — though the mouth 
should be subject, — though all the organs 
of the outer man should be subject; yet it 
availeth nothing, if the will of the mind is 
not subject. I could sell all my goods to 
feed the poor. I could compel my hand 
to sign an order to that effect, — and I could 
keep my hand from reversing that order 
till itw-as executed. But all this I may do 
says Paul, and yet have nothing, because I 
have not charity. It is not the act of well- 
doing to your neighbour, but a principle of 
love to your neighbour, on w T hich God 
stamps the testimony of his approbation. 
In like manner, it is not the act of well- 
doing to God, but the principle of love to 
God, which he values ; — and if this be with- 
held from him, you are carnal ; and with 
all your painful and multiplied attempts at 
obedience, your mind is not subject to the 
law of God. 

We shall conclude, at present, with two 
short reflections. 

First, If any of you are convinced of the 
justness of the representations w r hich we 
have now given, you will perceive that 
your guilt in the sight of God, may be of a 
far deeper and more alarming kind, than 
men are generally aw r are of. And such a 
view of the matter may be quite intolerable 
to him who nauseates the peculiarities of 
the gospel, — to him who has a contempt for 
the foolishness of that preaching, of which 
the great burden is Jesus Christ, and him 
crucified, — to him, in a w T ord, whom the 
true description of our moral disease, must 
terrify or offend, — seeing that he carries 
a distaste in his heart toward the alone 
remedy, by which the disease can be met 
and extirpated. 

But secondly, There is another class of 
people, w 7 hom such a view 7 of the actual 
state of human nature ought to tranquillize. 



206 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



by bringing their minds out of perplexity, 
into a state of firm and confident decision. 
There are often in a congregation, a set of 
hearers not yet shut up into the faith, but 
approaching towards it, — with a growing 
taste for the Christianity of the New Testa- 
ment, but without a full and a final acqui- 
escence in it, — with an opening and an 
enlarging sense of the importance of the 
gospel, but still halting between two opi- 
nions respecting it ; who, in particular, are 
not sure where their sole dependence for 
salvation should be placed, whether singly 
upon their own performances, or singly 
upon the righteousness of Christ, or jointly 
upon both. Now, we trust that the lesson 
of our text may have the effect with some, 
of bringing this unsettled account more 
speedily to its termination. You may have 
hitherto, perhaps, been under the impres- 
sion, that the condition of man was not just 
so bad as to require a Saviour, who must 
undertake the whole of his cure, and bring 
about the whole of his salvation. You have 
attempted to share with the Saviour in the 
matter of your redemption. Instead of 
looking upon it with the eye of the Apostle, 
as being all of grace, or all of works, you 
have in some way or other, attempted a 
compromise between them ; and this has 
the undoubted effect of keeping you at a 
distance from Christ. You have not felt 
your entire need of him, and therefore you 
have not leaned in close and constant de- 
pendence upon him. But let the torch of a 
spiritual law be lifted over your characters, 
and through the guise of its external de- 
cencies reveal to you the mountain of ini- 
quity within ; let the deformity of the heart 
be made known, and you become sensible 
of the fruitlessness of every endeavour, so 
long as the consent of a willing cordiality is 
withheld from the person and authority of 
God ; let the utter powerlessness of all 
your doings, be contrasted with the per- 
versity of your stubborn and unmanageable 
desires, and the case is seen in all its help- 



lessness ; — you become desperate of salva- 
tion in one way, and you are led to look for 
it in another way. The question, whether 
salvation is of grace or of works, receives 
its most decisive settlement; — when thus 
driven away from one term of the alterna- 
tive, you are compelled, as your only re- 
source, to the other term. You feel that 
nothing else will do for your acceptance 
with God, but your acceptance of the of- 
fered Saviour. You stand at the foot of 
the cross, — you make an absolute surrender 
of yourself to the terms of the gospel. 

And we know not a more blissful or a 
more memorable event, in the history of 
the human soul, than, when convinced that 
there is no other righteousness than in the 
merits, and no other sanctification than in 
the grace of the Saviour, it henceforth glo- 
ries only in his cross ; and now, that every 
other expedient of reformation has been tried, 
and failed of its accomplishment, it takes to 
the remaining one of crying mightily to God 
and pressing, at a throne of grace, the sup- 
plication of the Psalmist, " Create a clean 
heart, and renew a right spirit within me.' 

One thing is certain ; you are welcome 
at this moment, to lay hold of the righteous- 
ness of God, in Christ Jesus ; you are wel- 
come, at this moment, to the use of his pre- 
vailing name, in your prayers to the Father 
you are welcome, at this moment, to the 
plea of his meritorious obedience, and of 
his atoning death : and you are welcome, 
at this moment, to the promise of the Spirit, 
given unto all who believe, whereby the 
enmity of their carnal minds will be done 
away, — God will no longer be regarded 
with antipathy and disgust, — he will appear 
in the face of Jesus Christ as a reconciled 
father, — he will pour upon you the spirit of 
adoption, — you will walk before him with- 
out fear, — and those bonds being loosed, 
wherewith you were formerly held, you will 
yield to him the willing obedience of those 
whose hearts are enlarged, and who run, with 
delight, in the way of his commandments. 



SERMON XIV. 

The Power of the Gospel to dissolve the Enmity of the human Heart against God. 

" Having slain the enmity thereby." — Ephesians ii. 16. 



II. We shall now consider how it is that 
the gospel of Jesus Christ suits its applica- 
tion to this great moral disease. 

The necessity of some singular expedient 
for restoring the love of God to the alien- 
ated heart of man, will appear from the 
utter impossibility of bringing this about by 
any direct application of authority what- 



ever. For, do you think that the delivery 
of the law of love, in his hearing, as a posi- 
tive and indispensable enactment coming 
forth from the legislature of heaven will do 
it? You may as well pass a law, making 
it imperative upon him to delight in pain, 
and to feel comfort on a bed of torture. 
Or, do you think, that you will ever give a 



XIV.] 



DEPRAVITY OF 



HUMAN NATURE. 



207 



practical establishment to the law of love, 
by surrounding it with accumulated penal- 
ties 7 This may irritate, or it may terrify, — 
but for the purpose of begetting any thing 
like attachment, one may as well think of 
lashing another into tender regard for him. 
Or, do you think, that the terrors of the 
coming vengeance will ever incline a hu- 
man being to love the God who threatens 
him ? Powerful as these terrors are, in 
persuading man to turn from the evil of his 
ways, — they most assuredly do not form 
the artillery by which the heart of man can 
be carried. They draw not forth a single 
affection, but the affection of fear. They 
never can charm the human bosom into a 
feeling of attachment to God. And it goes 
to prove the necessity of some singular ex- 
pedient, for restoring man to fellowship 
with his Maker ; that the only obedience 
on which this fellowship can be perpetu- 
ated, is an obedience which no threatenings 
can force, — to which no warnings of dis- 
pleasure can reclaim, — which all the solemn 
proclamations of law and justice cannot 
carry, — and all the terrors and severities of 
a sovereignty resting on power, as its only 
foundation, can never subdue. The utter- 
ance of the words, Thou shalt love the 
Lord thy God, or perish everlastingly, can 
no more open the shut and alienated heart 
of man, than it can open a gate of iron. 
Multiply these arguments of terror as you 
may, — arm them with tenfold energy, and 
make them to fall in thunder on the sin- 
ner's ears, — tell him of the God of judg- 
ment, and manifest to him the frown of his 
angry countenance, — lay before him the 
grim aspect of his impending death, and 
spread a deeper mantle of despair over the 
vast field of that eternity which is on the 
other side of it; — you may disquiet him, 
and right that he should be so, — you may 
prevail on him to give up many evil doings ; 
and right that the whole urgency of the 
coming wrath should be employed to make 
him give them up immediately, — you may 
set him a trembling at the power of God, 
and better this than spending his guilty 
career, in thoughtlessness and unconcern, 
about the great Lawgiver ;— -but where, in 
the midst of all this, shall we find obedience 
to the very first and greatest commandment 
of the law ? Has this obedience been yet 
so much as entered on ? Has love to God 
so much as reached the infancy of its ex- 
istence in that heart which is now begin- 
ning to be agitated by its terrors ? Amid 
all the bitterness of remorse, and all the 
fearful looking for of judgment, and all the 
restless anxieties of conscious guilt, and 
anticipated vengeance, tell us, if a single 
particle of tenderness towards God has any 
place in this restless and despairing bosom ? 
Tell us, if it act as an element at all, in this 
wild war of turbulence and disorder ? Or, 



has it yet begun to dawn upon the mind, 
and spread its salutary and composing 
charm over that dark scene of conflict, un- 
der which many a sinner has to sustain the 
burden of the wearisome nights that are 
appointed to him ? You may seek for love 
to God throughout all the chambers of his 
heart, and seek in vain. The man may be 
acting such reformations as he is driven to, 
and may be clothing himself in such visible 
decencies, as he feels himself compelled to 
put on, and may be labouring away at the 
drudgery of such observances as he thinks 
will give him relief from the corrosions of 
that undying worm, which never ceases to 
goad him with its reproaches ; but as to the 
love of God, there is as grim and deter- 
mined an exclusion of this principle as 
ever, — that avenue to his heart has never 
been unlocked, through which it might be 
made to find its way, — every former argu- 
ment, so far from having dissolved the bar- 
rier, has only served to rivet and to make 
it more unmoveable. And the difficulty 
still lies upon us, — how are we to deposit 
in the heart of man, the only right princi- 
ple of obedience to God, — and to lead him 
onward in the single way of a pure, and 
spiritual, and substantial repentance ? 

This, then, is a case of difficulty, and, in 
the Bible, God is said to have lavished all 
the riches of his unsearchable wisdom on 
the business of managing it. No wonder 
that to his angels it appeared a mystery, 
and that they desired to look into it. It 
appears a matter of direct and obvious 
facility to intimidate man, — and to bring 
his body into a forced subordination to all 
the requirements. But the great matter 
was, how to attach man, — how to work in 
him a liking to God, and a relish for his 
character; — or, in other words, how to 
communicate to human obedience, that 
principle, without which it is no obedience 
at all, — to make him serve God because he 
loved him ; and to run in the way of all his 
commandments, because this was the thing 
in which he greatly delighted himself. To 
lay upon us the demand of satisfaction for 
his violated law, could not do it. To press 
home the claims of justice upon any sense 
of authority within us, could not do it. To 
bring forward, in threatening array, the 
terrors of his judgment, and of his power 
against us, could not do it. To unveil the 
glories of that throne where he sitteth in 
equity, and manifest to his guilty creatures 
the awful inflexibilities of his truth and 
righteousness, could not do it. To look out 
from the cloud of vengeance, and trouble 
our darkened souls as he did those of the 
Egyptians of old, with the aspect of a me- 
nacing Deity, could not do it. To spread the 
field of an undone eternity before us, and 
tell us of those dreary abodes where each 
criminal hath his bed in hell, and the cen- 



208 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



turies of despair which pass over him are 
not counted, because there no seasons roll, 
and the unhappy victims of the tribulation, 
and the wrath, and the anguish, know, that 
for the mighty burden of the sufferings 
which weigh upon them, there is no end, 
and no mitigation; this prospect, appalling 
as it is, and coming home upon the belief 
with all the characters of the most immuta- 
ble certainty, could not do it. The affections 
of the inner man remain as unmoved as 
ever, under the successive and repeated in- 
fluence of all these dreadful applications. 
There is not one of them, which, instead of 
conciliating, does not stir up a principle of 
resistance; and, subject any human crea- 
ture to the treatment of them all, and to 
nothing else, and he may tremble at God, 
and shrink at the contemplation of God, 
and feel an overpowering awe at the thought 
of God, when that thought visits him ; — 
but we maintain, that not one particle of 
influence has been sent into his heart, to 
make him love God. Under such applica- 
tions as these, we can conceive the crea- 
ture, gathering a new energy from despair, 
and mustering up a stouter defiance than 
ever to the God who threatens him. Strange 
contest between the thing formed and him 
who formed it; — but we see it exhibited 
among the determined votaries of wicked- 
ness in life ; and it is the very contest which 
gives its moral aspect to hell throughout all 
eternity. There God reigns in vindictive 
majesty, and there every heart of every 
outcast, sheathed in impenetrable hardness, 
mutters its blasphemies against him. O 
hideous and revolting spectacle ! and how 
awful to think that the unreclaimed sons of 
profligacy, who pour along our streets, and 
throng our markets, and form the fearful 
majority in almost every chamber of busi- 
ness, and in every workshop of industry, 
are thither speeding their infatuated way ! 
What a wretched field of contemplation is 
around us, when we see on every side of it 
the mutual encouragement, — the everply- 
ing allurements, — the tacit, though effectual 
and well understood, combination, sustain- 
ing, over the whole face of this alienated 
world, a firm and systematic rebellion 
against God ! We are not offering an ex- 
aggerated picture when we say, that within 
reach of the walk of a single hour, there 
are thousands, and thousands more, who 
have cast away from them the authority of 
God ; and who have been nerved by all his 
threatenings into a more determined atti- 
tude of wickedness ; and who glory in their 
unprincipled dissipations; and who, with- 
out one sigh at the moving spectacle of 
ruined innocence, will, in the hearing of 
companions younger than themselves, scat- 
ter their pestilential levities around them, 
and care not though the hope of parents, 
and the yet unvitiated delicacy of youth, 



shall wither and expire under the contagion 
of their ruffian example ; and will patronize 
every step of that progress which leads 
from one depravity to another, till their ill 
fated proselyte, made as much the child of 
hell as themselves, shall share in that com- 
mon ruin which, in the great day of the reve- 
lation of the righteous judgment of God, will 
come forth from the storehouse of his wrath, 
in one mighty torrent, on the heads of all 
who boast of their iniquity. We have now 
touched on the limits of a subject of which, 
half its horrors are untold; but through 
which, the minister of the counsels of hea- 
ven must clear his intrepid way, in spite of 
all its painfulness. We will not pursue it 
at present, but neither will we count the 
digression out of place, should a single pa- 
rent among you be led, from what we have 
now uttered, to be jealous over his children 
with a godly jealousy, and not to suffer those, 
for whose eternity he is so deeply responsi- 
ble, to take their random direction through 
society, just where the prospects of busi- 
ness, and of worldly advantage, may chance 
to carry them ; to calculate on the possi- 
bilities of moral corruption, as well as on 
the possibilities of lucrative employment ; 
to look well to exposures and acquaintances, 
and hours of social entertainment, as well 
as to the common-place object of a situation 
in the world. And when you talk of a 
good line for your children, just think a 
little more of the line that leadeth to eter- 
nity, and have a care lest you be the instru- 
ment of putting them on such a path of 
danger, that it shall only be the very rarest 
miracle of grace that your helpless young 
can be kept from falling, or be renewed 
again into repentance. 

But the difficulty in question still re- 
mains unresolved. How then is this re- 
generation to be wrought, if no threatenings 
can work it, — if no terrors of judgment 
can soften the heart into that love of God, 
which forms the chief feature of repent- 
ance, — if all the direct applications of law 
and of righteous authority, and of its tre- 
mendous and immutable sanctions, so far 
from attaching man in tenderness to his 
God, have only the effect of impressing a 
violent recoil upon all his affections, and, 
by the hardening influence of despair, of 
stirring up in his bosom a more violent an- 
tipathy than ever ? Will the high and so- 
lemn proclamations of a menacing Deity 
not do it ? This is not the way in which 
the heart of man can be carried. He is so 
constituted, that the law of love can never, 
never be established within him by the en- 
gine of terror ; and here is the barrier to 
this regeneration on the part of man. But 
if a threat of justice cannot do it, will an 
act of forgiveness do it ? This again is not 
the way in which God can admit the 
guilty to acceptance. He is so constituted 



XIV.] 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



209 



that his truth cannot be trampled upon, 
and his government cannot be despoiled 
of its authority, and its sanctions cannot, 
with impunity, be defied, and every solemn 
utterance of the Deity cannot but find its 
accomplishment, in such a way as may 
vindicate his glory,' and make the whole 
creation he has formed stand in awe of 
its Almighty Sovereign. And here is an- 
other barrier on the part of God ; and that 
economy of redemption, in which a dead 
and undiscerning world see no skilfulness 
to admire, and no feature of graciousness 
to allure, was so planned, in the upper 
counsels of heaven, that it maketh known, 
to principalities and powers, the manifold 
wisdom of Him who devised it. The men 
of this infidel generation, whose every fa- 
culty is so bedimmed by the grossness of 
sense, that they cannot lay hold of the 
realities of faith, and cannot appreciate 
them, — to them the barriers we have now 
insisted on, which lie in the way of man 
taking God into his love, and of God taking 
man into his acceptance, may appear to be 
so many faint and shadowy considerations, 
of which they feel not the significancy ; 
but, to the pure and intellectual eye of an- 
gels, they are substantial obstacles, and 
One Mighty to save had to travail in the 
greatness of his strength, in order to move 
them away. The Son of God descended 
from heaven, and he took upon him the 
nature of man, and he suffered in his stead, 
and he consented that the whole burden of 
offended justice should fall upon him, and 
he bore in his own body on the tree, the 
weight of all those accomplishments by 
which his Father behooved to be glorified, 
and after having magnified the law, and 
made it honourable, by pouring out his 
soul unto the death for us, he went up on 
high, and by an arm of everlasting 
strength, levelled that wall of partition 
which lay across the path of acceptance ; 
and thus it is, that the barrier on the part 
of God is done away, and he, with untar- 
nished glory, can dispense forgiveness 
over the whole extent of a guilty creation, 
because he can be just, while he is the 
justifier of them who believe in Jesus. 

And if the barrier, on the part of God, is 
thus moved aside, why not the barrier on 
the part of man ? Does not the wisdom of 
redemption show itself here also ? Does it 
not embrace some skilful contrivance, by 
which it penetrates those mounds that be- 
set the human heart, and ward the en- 
trance of the principle of love away from 
it, and which all the direct applications of 
terror and authority, have only the effect 
of fixing more immoveably upon their 
basis? Yes it does, — for it changes the 
aspect of the Deity towards man; and 
were man only to have faith in the an- 
nouncements of the gospel, so as to see 



God with the eye of his mind under this 
new aspect, — love to God would spring up 
in his heart, as the unfailing consequence. 
Let man see God as he sets himself forth 
in this wonderful revelation, and let him 
believe the reality of what he sees ; and 
he cannot but love the Being he is employ- 
ed in contemplating. Without this gospel, 
he may see him to be a God of justice; 
but he cannot do this without seeing the 
frown of severity directed against himself, 
a wretched offender : With this gospel, he 
sees the full burden of violated justice 
borne away from him ; and God stands be- 
fore him unrobed of all his severities, and 
tenderly inviting him to draw near through 
that blood of atonement which was shed, 
the just for the unjust, to bring the sinner 
unto God. Without this gospel, he may 
see the truth of God ; but he sees it pledged 
to the fulfilment of the most awful threat- 
enings against him: With this gospel, 
he sees the full weight of all these ac- 
complishments resting on the head of the 
great sacrifice; and God's truth is now 
fully embarked on the most cheering as- 
surances of pardon, on the most liberal in- 
vitations of good will, on the most exceed- 
ing great and precious promises. Without 
this gospel, he may see the government of 
God leaning on the pillars of that immuta- 
bility which upholds it ; but this very im- 
mutability is to him the sentence of despair; 
and how can he love that face, on which 
are stamped the characters of a stern and 
vindictive majesty ? W T ith this gospel, the 
face of God stands legibly revealed to 
him in other characters. That law which, 
resting on the solemn authority of its firm 
and unalterable requirements, demanded a 
fulfilment, up to the last jot and tittle of it, 
has been magnified, and has been made 
honourable, by one illustrious sufferer, who 
put forth the greatness of his strength, in 
that dark hour of the travail of his soul, 
when he bore the burden of all its penal- 
ties. That wrath which should have been 
discharged on the guilty millions he died 
for, was all concentred upon him, who 
took upon himself the chastisement of our 
peace, and on that day of mysterious ago- 
ny, drank, to the very dregs, the cup of 
our expiation. And God, who planned the 
whole work of this wonderful redemption, 
— God, who in love to a guilty world sent 
his Son amongst us to accomplish it, — 
God, who rather than lose his alienated 
creatures, as he could not strip his eternal 
throne of a single attribute that supported 
it, awoke the sword of vengeance against 
his fellow, that on him the truth and the 
justice of the Deity might receive their 
most illustrious vindication, — God, who, out 
of Christ, sits surrounded with all the dark- 
ness of unapproachable majesty, is now 
God in Christ, reconciling the world unto, 



210 



DEPRAVITY 0? HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



himself, and not imputing unto them their 
trespasses ; his tender mercy is now free 
to rejoice amid all the glory of his other 
bright and untarnished perfections, and he 
pours the expression of his tenderness, 
with an unsparing hand, over the whole 
extent of his sinful creation — and he lets 
himself down to the language of a beseech- 
ing supplicant, praying that each and every 
one of us might be reconciled unto him — 
and, putting on a winning countenance of 
invitation to the guiltiest of us all, he tells 
us, that if we only come to him through 
the appointed mediator, he will blot out, as 
with a thick cloud, our transgressions, — 
and that, as if carried away to a land that 
was not inhabited, he will make no more 
mention of them. 

And thus it is, that the goodness of God 
destroy eth the enmity of the human heart 
When every other argument fails, this, if 
perceived by the eye of faith, finds its 
powerful and persuasive way through 
every barrier of resistance. Try to ap- 
proach the heart of man by the instru - 
ments of terror and of authority, and it 
will disdainfully repel you. There is not 
one of you skilled in the management of 
human nature, who does not perceive, that, 
though this may be a way of working on 
the other principles of our constitution, — 
of working on the fears of man, or on his 
sense of interest, — this is not the way of 
gaining by a single hair-breadth on the at- 
tachments of his heart. Such a way may 
force, or it may terrify, but it never, never 
can endear; and after all the threaten- 
ing array of such an influence as this, is 
brought to bear upon man, there is'not one 
particle of service it can extort from him, 
but what is all rendered in the spirit of a 
painful and reluctant bondage. Now, this 
is not the service which prepares for hea- 
ven. This is not the service which assimi- 
lates men to angels. This is not the obe- 
dience of those glorified spirits, whose every 
affection harmonizes with their every per- 
formance ; and the very essence of whose 
piety consists of delight in God, and the 
love they bear to him. To bring up man 
to such an obedience as this, his heart be- 
hooved to be approached in a peculiar 
way and no such way is to be found, but 
within the limits of the Christian revela- 
tion. There alone you see God, without 
injury to his other attributes, plying the 
heart of man with the irresistible argument 
of kindness. There alone do you see the 
great Lord of heaven and of earth, setting 
himself forth to the most worthless and the 
most wandering of his children, — putting 
forth his own hand to the work of healing 
the breach which sin had made between 
them, — telling him that his word could not 
be set aside, and his threatenings could not 
be mocked, and his justice could not be 



defied and trampled on, and that it was not 
possible for his perfections to receive the 
slightest taint in the eyes of the creation 
he had thrown around him; but that all 
this was provided for, and not a single 
creature within the compass of the uni- 
verse he had formed, could now say, that 
forgiveness to man was degrading to the 
authority of God, and that by the very act 
of atonement, which poured a glory over 
all the high attributes of his character, his 
mercy might now burst forth without 
limit, and without controul, upon a guilty 
world, and the broad flag of invitation be 
unfurled in the sight of all its families. 

Let the sinner, then, look to God through 
the medium of such a revelation ; and the 
sight which meets him there, may well 
tame the obstinacy of that heart which had 
wrapped itself up in impenetrable hardness 
against the force of every other considera- 
tion. Now that the storm of the Almighty's 
wrath has been discharged upon him who 
bore the burden of the world's atonement, 
he has turned his throne of gloiy into a 
throne of grace, and cleared away from the 
pavilion of his residence, all the darkness 
which encompassed it. The God who dwell- 
eth there, is God in Christ ; and the voice 
he sends from it, to this dark and rebellious 
province of his mighty empire, is a voice 
of the most beseeching tenderness. Good 
will to men is the announcement with which 
his messengers come fraught to a guilty 
world ; and, since the moment in which it 
burst upon mortal ears from the peaceful 
canopy of heaven, may the ministers of 
salvation take it up, and go round with it 
among all the tribes and individuals of the 
species. Such is the real aspect of God to- 
wards you. He cannot bear that his alien- 
ated children should be finally and ever- 
lastingly away from him. He feels for you 
all the longing of a parent bereaved of his 
offspring. To woo you back again unto 
himself, he scatters among you the largest 
and the most liberal assurances, and with a 
tone of imploring tenderness, does he say 
to one and all of you, " Turn ye, turn ye, 
why will you die?" He has no pleasure 
in your death. He does not wish to glorify 
himself by the destruction of any one of 
you. " Look to me all ye ends of the earth, 
and be saved," is the wide and the generous 
announcement, by which he would recal, 
from the very outermost limits of his sinful 
creation, the most worthless and polluted 
of those who have wandered away from 
him. Now give us a man who perceives, 
with the eye of his mind, the reality of all 
this, and you give us a man in possession 
of the principle of faith. Give us a man 
in possession of this faith ; and his heart, 
shielded, as it were, against the terrors of a 
menacing Deity, is softened and subdued, 
and resigns its every affection at the mov- 



XV.] 



DEPRAVITY OF 



HUMAN NATURE. 



211 



ing spectacle of a beseeching Deity; and 
thus it is that faith manifests the attribute 
which the Bible assigns to it, of working by 
love. Give us a man in possession of this 
love; and animated as he is, with the living 
principle of that obedience, where the will- 
ing and delighted consent of the inner man 
goes along with the performance of the 
outer man, his love manifests the attribute 
which the Bible assigns to it, when it says, 
" This is the love of God, that ye keep his 
commandments." And thus it is, amid the 
fruitlessness of every other expedient, when 
power threatened to crush the heart which 
it could not soften, — when authority lifted 
its voice, and laid on man an enactment of 
love which it could not carry, — when terror 



shot its arrows, and they dropped ineffectual 
from that citadel of the human affections, 
which stood proof against the impression 
of every one of them, — when wrath mus- 
tered up its appalling severities, and filled 
that bosom with despair which it could not 
fill with the warmth of a confiding attach- 
ment, — then the kindness of an inviting God 
was brought to bear on the heart of man, 
and got an opening through all its myste- 
rious avenues. Goodness did what the na- 
kedness of power could not do. It found 
its way through all the intricacies of the 
human constitution, and there, depositing the 
right principle of repentance, did it establish 
the alone effectual security for the right pur- 
poses, and the right fruits of repentance. 



SERMON XV. 

The Evils of false Security. 

M They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying Peace, Peace ; when there 

is no peace." — Jeremiah vi. 14. 



We must all have remarked, on what a 
slight and passing consideration people will 
dispose of a question which relates to the 
interest of their eternity ; and how strikingly 
this stands contrasted with the very deep, 
and earnest, and long sustained attention, 
which they bestow on a question which re- 
lates to their interest, or their fortune, in 
this world. Ere they embark, for example, 
on an enterprise of trade, they will look at 
all the ^ides, and all the possibilities of the 
speculation; and every power of thought 
within them, will be put to its busiest exer- 
cise, and they will enter upon it with much 
fearfulness, and they will feel an anxious 
concern in every step, and every new evo- 
lution of such an undertaking. Compare 
this with the very loose and summary way 
in which they make up their minds about 
the chance of happiness in another world. 
See at how easy a rate they will be satisfied 
with some maxim of security, the utterance 
of which serves as a bar against all further 
prosecution of the subject. Behold the use 
they make of some hastily assumed prin- 
ciple in religion, — not for the purpose of 
fastening their minds upon it, but for the 
purpose, in fact, of hurrying their minds 
away from it. For it must be observed of 
the people to whom we allude, that, in spite 
of all their thoughtlessness about the affairs 
of the soul, they are not altogether without 
some opinion on the matter ; and in which 
opinion there generally is comprised all the 
theology of which they are possessed. With- 
out some such opinion, even the most re- 
gardless of men might feel themselves in a 



state of restlessness; and therefore it is, 
however seldom they are visited with any 
thought about eternity, and however gently 
this thought touches them, and however 
quickly it passes away, to be replaced by 
some of the more urgent vanities and inter- 
ests of time, yet, with most men, there is 
something like an actual making up of their 
minds, on this awfully important subject. 
There is a settlement they have come to 
about it, which, generally speaking, serves 
them to the end of their days ; — and on the 
strength of which, there are many who can 
hush within them every alarm of conscience, 
and repel from without them, the whole 
force of a preacher's demonstration, and all 
that power of disquietude which lies in his 
faithful and impressive warnings. 

We speak in reference to a very nume- 
rous set of individuals, among the upper 
and middling classes of society. There is a 
class of what may be called slender and sen - 
timental religionists, who do profess a re- 
verence for the matter, and maintain many 
of its outward decencies, and are visited 
with occasional thoughts, and occasional 
feelings of tenderness about death, and duty, 
and eternity, and would be shocked at the 
utterance of an infidel opinion ; and with 
all these symptoms of a religious inclina- 
tion about them, have their minds very com- 
fortably made up, and altogether free from 
any apprehension, either of present wrath 
or of coming vengeance. Now, on examin- 
ing the ground of their tranquillity, we are 
at a loss to detect a single ingredient of that 
peace and joy in believing, which we read 



212 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM* 



of among the Christians of the New Testa- 
ment. It is not that Christ is set forth 
a propitiation for their sins, — it is not that 
they stagger not at the promise of God, be- 
cause of unbelief, — it is not that the love of 
him is shed abroad in their hearts, by the 
Holy Ghost, — it is not that they carry along 
with them any consciousness whatever, of 
a growing conformity to the image of the 
Saviour, — it is not that their calling and 
their election are made sgre to them, by 
the successful diligence with which they 
are cultivating the various accomplishments 
of the Christian character; — there is not 
one of these ingredients, will we venture to 
say, which enters into the satisfaction that 
many feel with their own prospects, and 
into the complacency they have, in their 
own attainments, and into their opinion, 
that God is looking to them with indulgence 
and friendship. With most of them, there 
is not only an ignorance, but a positive dis- 
gust, about these things. They associate 
with them the charges of methodism, and 
mysticism, and fanaticism : and meanwhile 
cherish in their own hearts a kind of im- 
pregnable confidence, resting entirely on 
some other foundation. 

We believe the real cause of their tran- 
quillity to be, just that eternity is not seen 
nearly enough, or urgently enough, to dis- 
turb them. It stands so far away on the 
back ground of their contemplation, that 
they are almost entirely taken up with 
the intervening objects. Any glimpse they 
have of the futurity which lies on the other 
side of time, is so faint, and so occasional, 
that its concerns never come to them with 
the urgency of a matter on hand. It is not 
so much because they think in a particular 
way on this topic, that they feel themselves 
to be at peace. It is rather because they 
think so little of it. Still, however, they do 
have a transient and occasional thought, 
and it is all on the side of tranquillity; and 
could this thought be exposed as a minister 
of deceitful complacency to the heart, it 
may have the effect of working in it a salu- 
tary alarm, and of making the possessor of 
it see the nakedness of his condition, and 
of undermining every other trust but a trust 
in the offered salvation of the gospel, and 
of unsettling the Wind and easy confidence 
of his former days, and of prompting him 
with the question, fr: What shall I do to be 
saved?" and of leading him to try this : 
question by the light of revelation, and to < 
prosecute it to a scriptural conclusion, till i 
he came to the answer of, " Believe in the 1 
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." s 

What is the way, then, in which they do 
actually make up their minds upon this 1 
subject? There is, in the first place, a i 
pretty general admission, that we are sin- 1 
ners, though along with this, there is a dis- 1 
position to palliate the enormity of sin, and ; 



- to gloss it over with the gentle epithet of 
l an infirmity. It is readily allowed, then, 
; that we have our infirmities ; and then to 
make all right, and secure, and comforta- 
\ able, the sentiment with which they bring 
i the matter round again, is, that though we 
have our infirmities, God is a merciful God ^ 
and he will overlook them. This vague, 
and general, and indistinct apprehension of 
the attribute of mercy is the anchor of their 
hope ; not a very sure and steadfast one, 
certainly, but just as sure and as steadfast, 
as, in their peaceful state of unconcern, they 
have any demand for. A vessel in smooth 
w r ater needs not be very strongly fastened 
in her moorings ; and really any convictions 
of sin they have, agitate them so gently, 
that a very slender principle indeed, uttered 
occasionally by the mouth, and with no 
distinct or perceptible hold upon the heart, 
is enough, to quiet and subdue all that is 
troublesome within them. A slight hurt 
needs but a slight remedy, and however 
virulent the disease may be, yet if the pa- 
tient be but gently alarmed, a gentle appli- 
cation is enough to pacify hirn in the mean 
time. Now, a tasteful and a tender senti- 
ment about the goodness of God, is just such 
an application. Ke will not be severe upon 
our weaknesses ; he will not cast a glance 
of stern and unrelenting indignation upon 
us. It is true, that there is to be met with, 
among the vilest dregs and refuse of society, 
a degree of profligacy for which it would 
really be too much to expect forgiveness. 
The use of hell is for the punishment of such 
gross and enormous wickedness as this. 
But the people who are so very depraved, 
and so very shocking, stand far beneath the 
place which we occupy in the ^cale of 
character. We, with our many amiable, 
and good, and neighbourlike points and 
accomplishments, are fair and befitting sub- 
jects for the kindness of God. When we 
err, we shall betake ourselves to a trust in 
that indulgence, which gives to our religion 
the aspect of so much cheerfulness; and 
we will school down all that is disquieting, 
by a sentiment of confidence in that mercy 
which is soothing to our hearts, and which 
we delight to hear expatiated upon in terms 
of tastefulness, by the orators of a genteel 
and cultivated piety. 

Under this loose system of confidence, 
then, by which the peace of so many a sin- 
ner is upheld, it is the general mercy of 
God on which he rests. I shall, therefore, 
in the first place, endeavour to prove the 
vanity of such a confidence ; and, in the 
second place, the evils of it. 

I. There is one obvious respect, in which 
this mercy that is so slenderly spoken of-, 
and so vaguely trusted in, is not in unison 
with truth ; and that is, it is not the mercy 
which has been made the subject of an 
actual offer from God to man, in the true 



XV.] DEPRAVITY OF H 

message that he has been pleased to de- 
liver to the world. In this message, God 
makes a free offer of his mercy, no doubt ; 
but he offers it on a particular footing, and 
on that footing only, will he have it to be 
received. Along with the revelation he 
makes of his attribute of mercy, he bids us 
look to the particular way in which he 
chooses that attribute to be put forth. The 
man who steps forward to relieve you of 
your debts, by an act of gratuitous kind- 
ness, may surely reserve the privilege of 
doing it in his own way ; and whether it 
be by a present in goods, or by a present 
in money, or by an order upon a third per- 
son, or by the appointment of one whom he 
makes the agent of his beneficence, and 
whom he asks you to correspond with and 
to draw upon, it would surely be most pre- 
posterous in you to quarrel with his gene- 
rosity, because it would have been more to 
your taste, had it come to you through a 
different channel of conveyance. He has a 
fair right of insisting upon his own way of 
it ; and if you will not acquiesce in this way, 
and he leaves you under your burden, you 
have nothing to complain of. You might 
have liked it better had he authorized you 
to draw upon himself, rather than on the 
agent he has fixed upon. But no ; he has 
his reasons, and he persists in his own way 
of it, and you must either go along with 
this way, or throw yourself out of the 
benefit of his generosity altogether. It is 
conceivable that, in spite of ail this, you 
may be so very perverse as to draw upon 
himself, instead of drawing upon the au- 
thorized agent. AVell, the effect is, just that 
your draft is dishonoured, and your debt 
still lies upon you ; and, by your wilful re- 
sistance to the plan of relief laid down, are 
left to remain under the full weight of your 
embarrassments. 

And so of God. He may, and he actu- 
ally has stepped forward, to relieve us from 
that debt of sin under which we lie. But 
he has taken his own way of it. He has 
not left us to dictate the matter to him, — 
but he himself has found out a ransom. He 
offers us eternal life ; but he tells us where 
this is to be found, even in his Son, and he 
bids us look unto him, and be saved ; and 
he says, that he who hath the Son hath 
life, and that he who believeth not the Son, 
the wrath of God abideth on him. To re- 
strain, as it were, our immediate approaches 
to himself, he reveals an agent, a Mediator 
between God and man,— and he lets us 
4mow, that no one cometh unto the 
Father, but by him. He makes a free offer 
of salvation, — but it is in and through Jesus 
Christ, to whom the whole revealed word 
of God directs our eye, as the prime agent 
in the recovery of a guilty world. To say 
that we have our infirmities, but God is 
merciful, is like drawing direct upon God j 



:UMAN NATURE. 213 

himself. But God tells us that he will not 
be so drawn upon. He chooses, and has he 
not the right of choosing, to bestow all his 
favours upon a guilty world, in and through 
his Son Christ Jesus? If you choose to 
object to this way, you must just abide 
by the consequences. The offer is made. 
God sets himself forward as merciful. But 
he lets you know, at the same time, the 
particular way in which he chooses to be 
so. This way may be an offence to you. 
You would, perhaps, have liked better, had 
there been no Christ, no preaching of his 
cross, nothing said about his cleansing and 
peace-speaking blood, — in a word, nothing 
of all that which forms the burden of 
methodistical sermons, and which, if met 
with in the New Testament at all, is only 
to be found in what you may think its dark 
and mystical passages. It would have been 
more congenial to your taste, perhaps, had 
you been left to the undisturbed enjoyment 
of your own soothing and elegant concep- 
tions, — could you just have gone direct to 
God himself, whom the eye of your ima- 
gination had stripped of all tremendous se- 
verity against sin, of all the pure and holy 
jealousies of his nature, of all that is ma- 
jestic in the high attributes of truth and 
righteousness. A God singly possessed of 
tenderness, in virtue of which, he would 
smile connivance at all our infirmities, and 
bend an indulgent eye over the wayward- 
ness of a heart devoted with all its af- 
fections to the vanities and pleasures of 
time, — this would be a God highly suited 
to the taste and convenience of a guilty 
world. But, alas ! there is no such God. 
To trust in the mercy of such a Being as 
this, is to lean on a nonentity of your own 
imagination. It is to be led astray, by a 
fancy picture of your own forming. There 
is no other God to whom you can repair 
for mercy, but God in Christ, reconciling 
the world unto himself, and not imputing 
unto them their trespasses. And if you 
resist the preaching of Christ as foolish- 
ness, — if you will not recognize him, but per- 
sist in your hoping, and your trusting, on the 
general ground that God is merciful, you 
are just wrapping yourselves up in a delu- 
sive confidence, and pleasing yourselves 
with your own imagination ; and the only 
real offer that ever was, or ever will be 
made to sinful man, you are putting aWay 
from you. The mercy upon which you 
rest, is in disunion with truth. It is a spark 
of your own kindling, and if you continue 
to walk in it, it will lead you into a path of 
darkness, and bewilder you to your final 
undoing. 

II. The evils of such a confidence as we 
have been attempting to expose, are mainly 
reducible to two, which we shall consider 
in order. 

I First, this delusive confidence casts an 



214 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



aspersion on the character of God. It 
would inflict a mutilation upon that cha- 
racter. It is confidence in such a mercy as 
would dethrone the lawgiver, and establish 
the anarchy of a wild misrule, over his 
fallen and dishonoured attributes. We may 
lightly take up with the conception that 
God is all tenderness, and nothing else, and 
thus try to accommodate the character of 
the Eternal, to the standard of our own 
convenience and our own wishes. We, 
instead of looking to the immutability of the 
Godhead, and taking our fixed and perma- 
nent lesson from such a contemplation, may 
fancy of the Godhead, that he is ever as- 
suming a new shape, and a new character, 
according to the frail and fluctuating ca- 
prices of human opinion. Instead of God 
making man according to his pleasure , man 
would form God in the mould of his own 
imagination. He forgets that, in the whole 
range of existence,, he can only meet with 
one object who is inflexibly and ever- 
lastingly the same, and that is God, — that 
he may sooner think of causing the ever- 
lasting hills to recede from their basis, than 
of causing an infringement on the nature 
of the unalterable Deity, or on the designs 
and maxims which support the method of 
his administration,— that to assume a cha- 
racter for him in our own mind, instead of 
learning what the character is from himself, 
is in fact to make the foolish thought of the 
creature, paramount to the eternal and im- 
mutable constitution of the Creator. 

Let us therefore give up our own concep- 
tions, and look steadily to that light in which 
God hath actually put himself forth to us. 
He has dealt out a variety of communications 
respecting his own ever-during character 
and attributes, to the children of men ; and 
he tells us, that he is a God of truth, and 
that he is jealous of his honour, and that he 
will not be mocked, and that heaven and 
earth shall pass away, ere any of his words 
pass away. Let us just attend to some of these 
words. He who continues not in the whole 
book of this law, is accursed. The whole 
world is guilty before God. He will by no 
means clear the guilty. Without shedding 
of blood, there is no remission. These are 
the words of God. He has put them into a 
record. Every one of us may read them, 
and compare the sayings of God, with the 
doings of God, and if they do not correspond, 
the one with the other, we may charge him 
with falsehood in the face of his insulting 
enemies, and lift the voice of mockery 
against him, and feel the triumph which 
rebels feel, when they witness the timidity 
of a feeble monarch, who does not, or dares 
not, carry his threats into accomplishment. 
And is it possible, that the throne of the 
eternal God can rest on a basis so tottering, — 
or that, if ever he shall descend to the mani- 
festation of mercy, he will not give the 



manifestation of. his truth and his righteous- 
ness along with it ? 

Now, those who, without any reference 
to Christ, find their way to comfort on the 
strength of their own general confidence 
in God's mercy, make no account whatever 
of his truth, or his righteousness. What be- 
comes of the threatenings of God ? What 
becomes of the immutability of his pur- 
poses? What becomes of the unfailing truth 
of all his communications? What becomes 
of the solemnity of his warnings? and how is 
it possible to be at all impressed by them, — 
if they are ever and anon done away by a 
weak and capricious system of connivance ? 
What becomes of the wide and everlasting 
distinctions, between obedience and sin ? 
What becomes of the holiness of the Deity ? 
What becomes of reverence for his name, 
among the wide circle of angels, and arch- 
angels, and seraphim, and cherubim, who 
have all heard his awful proclamations 
against the children of iniquity, — if they 
see that any one of them may, by a mere 
act of confidence in his mercy, turn all that 
has been uttered against them into an un- 
meaning parade? Where, in a word, are 
all those sanctions and securities which can 
alone make the government of the Deity, 
to be a government at all? These are all 
questions which the people to whom we 
allude, never think of entertaining ; nor do 
they feel the slightest concern about them • 
and they count it quite enough, if they can 
just work themselves up into such a tolera- 
ble feeling of security, as that they shall 
not be disturbed in the quiet enjoyment of 
the good things of this life, which form all 
in fact that their hearts long after, and which 
if only permitted to retain in peace, they 
positively care not for the glory of God, or 
how shall it be kept inviolate. This is not 
their affair. The engrossing desire of their 
bosoms, is just a selfish desire after their 
own ease: and the strange preparation for 
that heaven, the unceasing song of which 
is, Holy and righteous- are thy judgments, 
O thou king of Saints, is such a habit of 
confidence, as lays prostrate all the majesty 
of these high and unchangeable perfections. 

And yet if you examine these people 
closely, you will obtain their consent to the 
position, that there is a law, and that the hu- 
man race are bound to obedience, and that the 
authority of the law is supported by sanc- 
tions, and that the truth, and justice, and 
dignity of the Supreme Being, are involved 
in these sanctions being enforced and exe- 
cuted. They do not refuse the tenet that man 
is an accountable subject, and that God is a 
judge and a lawgiver. All that we ask of 
them, then, is, to examine the account 
which this subject has to render, and they 
will find, in characters too glaring to be re- 
sisted, that, with the purest and most per- 
fect individual amongst us, it is a wretched 



XV.] 



DEPRAVITY OF 



HUMAN NATURE. 



215 



account of guilt and of deficiency. That 
law, which is held, to be in full authority 
and operation over us, has been most un- 
questionably violated. Now, what is to be 
made of this? Is the subject to rebel, and 
disobey every hour, and the king, by a per- 
petual act of indulgence, to efface every 
character of truth and dignity from his 
government? Do this and you depose the 
legislator from his throne. You reduce 
the sanction of his law to a name and a 
mockery. You bring down the high eco- 
nomy of heaven, to the standard of human 
convenience. You pull the fabric of God's 
moral government to pieces; and unsub- 
stantiate all the solemnity of his proclaimed 
sayings, — all the lofty annunciations of the 
law, and of the prophets,— all that is told 
of the mighty apparatus of the day of judg- 
ment, all that revelation points to, or con- 
science can suggest, of a living and a reign- 
ing God, who will not let himself down to 
be affronted, or trampled upon, by the crea- 
tures whom he has formed. 

They who, in profession, admit the truth 
of God, and yet take comfort from his mercy, 
without looking to him who bare in his 
own person, the accomplishment of all the 
threatenings, do in fact turn that truth into 
a lie. They, who, in profession, admit the 
justice of God, and yet trust in the remis- 
sion of their sins, without any distinct ac- 
knowledgement of him on whom God has 
laid the burden of their condemnation, do 
in fact prove, that in their mouths justice is 
nothing but an unmeaning articulation. 
They who, in profession, admit the autho- 
rity of those great and unchanging princi- 
ples, which preside over the whole of God's 
moral administration, and yet assign to him 
such aloose and easy connivance at iniquity, 
as by a mere act of tenderness, to recal the 
every denunciation that he had uttered 
against it, do in fact put forth a sacrile- 
gious hand, to the pillars of that immuta- 
bility, by which the government of creation 
is upheld and perpetuated. Let them rest 
assured, that there is no way of reconci- 
liation,but such a way as shields all the holy, 
and pure, and inflexible attributes of the 
Divinity, from degradation and contempt. 

Out of that hiding-place which is made 
known in the gospel, all that is just, and 
severe, and inflexible in the perfections of 
God, stands in threatening array against 
every son and daughter of the species. And 
if they will not look to God as he sets him- 
self forth to us in the New Testament, — if 
they refuse to look unto him as God in 
Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, 
and not imputing unto them their tres- 
passes, — if they set aside all that is said 
about the blood of the everlasting covenant, 
and the new and living way of access, and 
the manner in which the mediatorship of 
Christ hath repaired all the indignities of 



sin, and shed a glory over the truth and 
justice of the lawgiver, — if they will still 
persist in looking to him through another 
channel than that of his own revelation ; he 
will persist in looking to them with the 
aspect of a stern and unappeased enemy. 
He will not let down the honours of his 
inflexible character, for the sake of those 
who refuse his way of salvation. He will 
not fall in with the delusions of those who 
profess to revere this character, and then 
shake the whole burden of conscious guilt 
and infirmity away from them, by the pre- 
sumption, that in some way or other, the 
mercy of God will interpose to defend them 
from the vengeance of his more severe and 
unrelenting perfections. The one and the 
only way, in which he dispenses mercy, is 
through the atonement of Christ, — and if 
your confidence be laid in any other quarter, 
he will put that confidence to shame. He 
will not accept the prayers of those, who 
can thus make free with the unchangeable 
attributes which belong to him. He will 
not descend with such to any intercourse 
of affection whatever. He will not own the 
approaches, nor will he deal out any boon 
from the storehouse of his grace, to those 
who profess a general confidence in his 
mercy — when, instead of a mercy which 
guards, and dignifies, and keeps entire the 
whole glory and character of God, it is a 
mercy which belies his word, which invades 
his other perfections, which spoils the divine 
image of its grandeur, which breaks up the 
whole fabric of his moral government, and 
would make the throne of heaven the seat 
of an unmeaning pageant, the throne of an 
insulted and degraded sovereign. 

The religion of nature, — or the religion 
of unaided demonstration, — or the religion 
of our most fashionable and philosophical 
schools, leaves this question totally undis- 
posed of; — and at the same time, till the 
question be resolved, all the hopes of the 
human soul are in a state of the most fearful 
uncertainty. This religion makes God the 
subject of its demonstrations, and it draws 
out a list of attributes, and it makes the 
justice of God to be one of these attributes, 
and the placability of God to be another of 
them, and it admits that it is in virtue of the 
former perfection of his nature, that he 
makes condemnation and punishment to 
rest on the head of those who violate his 
law, and that it is in virtue of the latter 
perfection that he looks connivance, and 
extends pardon to such violations. 

Now, the question which the disciples of 
this religion have never settled, is, how to 
strike the compromise between these attri- 
butes. They cannot dissipate the cloud of 
mystery, which hangs over the line of de- 
marcation that is between them. They 
cannot tell in how far the justice of God 
will insist on its exactions and its claims, or 



216 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



what the extent of that disobedience is, 
over which the placability of God will 
spread the shelter of a generous forgive- 
ness. There is a dilemma here, out of 
which they cannot unwarp themselves, — a 
question to which they can give no other 
answer, than the expressive answer of their 
silence, — and it is such a silence, as leaves 
our every apprehension unquelled, and the 
whole burden of our unappeased doubts 
and difficulties as insupportable as before. 
What we demand is, that they shall lay 
down the steady and unalterable position 
of that limit, at which the justice of God, 
and the placability of God, cease their 
respective encroachments on each other. 
If they cannot tell this, they can tell nothing 
that is of any consequence, either to the 
purpose of comfort, or of direction. The 
smner wishes to know on which side of 
this unknown and undetermined limit, his 
degree of sinfulness is placed. He wishes 
to know whether his offences are such as 
come under the operation of justice, or of 
mercy, — whether the one attribute will 
exact from him the penalty, or the other 
will smile on him connivance. It is in vain 
to say, that if he repent and turn from them, 
mercy will claim him as her own, and re- 
cover him from the dominion of justice, 
and spread over all his sins the mantle of 
an everlasting oblivion. This may still be 
saying nothing, — for the work of repent- 
ance is a work, which, though he should be 
always trying, he always fails in; and in 
spite of his every exertion, there is a sin 
and a shortness in all his services. And 
when he casts his eye along the scale of 
character, he sees the better and the worse 
on each side of him ; and the difficulty still 
recurs, how far down in the scale does 
mercy extend, or how far up on this scale 
does justice carry its fiery sentence of con- 
demnation. And thus it is, that he feels no 
fixed security, which he can lay hold of, — 
no solid ground on which he can lay the 
trust of his acceptance with God. And 
this religion, which has left the whole 
problem of the attributes undetermined, 
which can furnish the- sinner with no light, 
by which he may be made to perceive how 
justice can be displayed, but at the expense 
of mercy, or how mercy can be displayed, 
but by breaking in upon the entireness of 
justice ; this hollow, baseless, unsupported 
system, which, by mangling and deforming 
the whole aspect of the Deity, has virtually 
left man without God, — has also, by the 
faint and twilight obscurity, or rather by 
the midnight darkness in which it has in- 
volved the question about the point of sin- 
fulness, at which the one attribute begins 
the exercise of its rigour, and the other 
ceases its indulgence, not only left man 
without God, but also left him without any 
solid hope in the world. 



But, Secondly, the confidence we have 
been attempting to expose, is hostile to 
the cause of practical righteousness in the 
world. 

For what is the real and experimental 
effect of the obscurity in question on the 
practice of mankind ? The question about 
our interest with God, is felt to be unre- 
solvable ; and, under this feeling, no genuine 
attempt is made to resolve it. Man eases 
himself of the difficulty by putting it away 
from him; and, as he cannot find the point 
of gradation in the scale of character, on 
the one side of which, there lies acceptance 
with God, and on the other side of it, con- 
demnation, — he just upholds himself in 
tranquillity at any one point, throughout 
ever^ one variety of this gradation. 

Let the question only be put, How far 
down, in the scale of character, may this 
loose system of confidence be carried ? and 
where is the limit between those sins, to 
which forgiveness may be looked for, and 
those sins from which it is withheld ? and 
you will seldom find the man who gives 
an answer against himself. The world, in 
fact, is so much the home and the resting- 
place of every natural man, that you will 
not get him so to press, and so to prosecute 
the question, as to come to any conclusion, 
that is at all likely to alarm him. He will 
not barter his present peace, for a concern 
that looks so distant to him as that of his 
eternity. The question touches but lightly 
on his feelings, and an answer conceived 
lightly, and given lightly, will be enough to 
pacify him. Go to the man, whose decent 
and unexceptionable proprieties make him 
the admiration of all his acquaintances, and 
even he will allow that he has his infirmities ; 
but he can smother all his apprehensions, 
and regale his fancy with the smile of an 
indulgent God. Take, now, a descending 
step in the scale of character ; and do you 
think there is not to be met with there, the 
very same process of conscious infirmity 
on the one hand, and of vague, general, and 
bewildering confidence on the other? Will 
the people of the lower station not do the 
very same thing with the people above 
them? — Compare themselves with them- 
selves, and find equals to keep them in 
countenance, and share in the average 
respect that circulates around them, and 
take comfort in the review of their very 
fair and neighbourlike accomplishments, 
and with the allowance of being just such 
sinners as they are in the daily habit of 
associating with, get all their remorse, and 
all their gloomy anticipations disposed of, 
by throwing the whole burden of them, in 
a loose and general way, on the indulgence 
of God? 

And where, in the name of truth and of 
righteousness, will this stop ? We can an- 
swer that question. It will not stop at all. 



XVI.] 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE- 



217 



It will describe the whole range of human 
character; and we challenge you to put 
your finger on that point where it is to ter- 
minate, or to find out the place where a 
barrier is to be raised against the pro- 
gress of this mischievous security. It will 
go downwards and downwards, till it come 
to the very verge of the malefactor's dungeon. 
Nay, it will enter there ; and we doubt not, 
that an enlightened discerner may witness, 
even in this receptacle of outcasts, the ope- 
ration of the very sentiment which gives 
such peace and such buoyancy to him whose 
moral accomplishments throw around him 
the lustre of a superior estimation. But 
this lustre will not impose on the eye of 
God. The Discerner of the heart sees that 
one and all of us are alienated from him, 
and strangers to the obligation of his high 
and spiritual acquirements. He declares 
the name of Christ to be the only one given 
under heaven, whereby men can be saved ; 
and after this, every act of confidence, dis- 
owning his name, is an expression of the 
most insulting impiety. On the system of 
general confidence, every man is left to sin 
just as much as he likes, and to take com- 
fort just as much as his powers of delu- 
sion can administer to him. At this rate, 
the government of God is unhinged, — the 
whole earth is broken loose from the sys- 
tem of his administration, — he is deposed 
from his supremacy altogether, — peace, 
when there is no peace, spreads its deadly 
poison over the face of society, — and one 
sentiment, of deep and fatal tranquillity 
about the things of God, takes up its firm 
residence in a world, which, from one end 
to the other of it, sends up the cry of re- 
bellion against him. 

This is a sore evil. The want of a fixed 
and clearly perceptible line between the 
justice and placability of the divine nature, 
not only buries in utter darkness the ques- 
tion of our acceptance with God ; but, by 
throwing every thing loose and undeter- 
mined, it opens up the range of a most 
lawless and uncontrolled impunity for the 
disobedience of man, up from its gentler 
deviations, and down to its most profligate 



and daring excesses. If there be no intel- 
ligible line to separate the exercise of the 
justice of God from the exercise of his 
placability, every individual will fix this 
line for himself; and he will make these' 
two attributes to be yea and nay, or fast 
and loose with each other; and he will 
stretch out the placability, and he will press 
upon the justice, just as much as to ac- 
commodate the standard of his religious 
principles to the state of his religious prac- 
tice; and he will make every thing to 
square with his own existing taste, and 
wishes, and convenience ; and his mind 
will soon work its own way to a system 
of religious opinions which gives him no 
disturbance; and the spirit of a deep slum- 
ber will lay hold of his deluded conscience ; 
and thus, from the want of a settled line, — 
from the vague, ambiguous, and indefinite 
way in which this matter is taken up, and 
brought to a very loose and general con- 
clusion, — or, in other words, from that very 
way in which natural religion, whether 
among deists, or our more slender profes- 
sors of Christianity, leaves the whole ques- 
tion, about the limit of the attributes, unen- 
tered upon, — will every man take comfort 
in the imagined tenderness of God, just as 
much as he stands in need of it, and expe- 
riment on the patience of God just as far as 
his natural desires may carry him, — so that 
when we look to the men of the world, as 
they pass smoothly onward, from the cra- 
dle to the grave, do we see each of them in 
a state of profound security as to his inter- 
est with God ; each of them solacing him- 
self with his own conception about the 
slenderness of his guilt, and the kindness 
of an indulgent Deity ; each of them in a 
state of false and fancied peace with Hea- 
venj while every affection of the inner man, 
and many of the doings of the outer man, 
bear upon them the stamp of rebellion 
against Heaven's law ; each of them walk- 
ing without uneasiness, and without terror, 
while, at the same time, each and all of 
them do in fact walk in the counsel of their 
own hearts, and after the sight of their own 
eyes. 



SERMON XVI. 

The Union of Truth and Mercy in the Gospel. 
''Mercy and truth are met together: righteousness and peace have kissed each other." — Psalm lxxxv. 10. 



It was not by a simple deed of amnesty, 
that man was invited to return and be at 
peace with God. It was by a deed of ex- 
piation. It was not by nullifying the sanc- 
tions of the law, that man was offered a 
2 E 



free and a full discharge from the penalties 
he had incurred by breaking it. It was by 
executing these sanctions on another, who 
voluntarily took them upon himself, and 
who, in so doing, magnified the law, and 



218 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



made it honourable. To redeem ns from 
the curse of the law, Christ became a curse 
for us. It was not by God lifting off our 
iniquities from our persons, and scattering 
' them away into a region of forgetfulness, 
without one demonstration of his abhor- 
rence, and without the fulfilment of his 
threatenings against them ; but lifting them 
off from us, he laid them on another, who 
bare, in his own person, the punishment 
that we should have borne. God laid upon 
his own Son the iniquities of us all. The 
guilt of our sins is not done away by a 
mere act of forgiveness. It is washed away 
by the blood of the Lamb. God set him 
forth a propitiation. He was smitten for 
our transgressions. He gave himself for 
us an offering and a sacrifice to God. The 
system of the gospel no more expunges 
the attribute of mercy from the character 
of the Godhead, than it expunges the attri- 
butes of truth and righteousness. But all 
the mercy which it offers and proclaims to 
a guilty world, is the mercy which flows 
upon it through the channel of that Media- 
torship, by which his truth and his justice 
have been asserted and vindicated; and, 
while it reveals to us the openness of this 
channel, it also reveals to us that every 
other which the heart of man may con- 
ceive, is shut, and intercepted, and utterly 
impassable. There is none other name 
given under heaven, whereby man can be 
saved, but the name of him who poured 
out his soul unto the death for us. With- 
out the shedding of his blood, there could 
have been no remission. And he who hath 
not the Son, hath the wrath of God abiding 
on him. 

It is due to our want of moral sensibility, 
that sin looks so light and so trivial in our 
estimation. We have no adequate feeling 
of its malignity, of its exceeding sinfulness. 
And, liable as we are to think of God, that 
he is altogether like unto ourselves, do we 
think that he may cancel our guilt as easily 
from the book of his condemnation, by an 
act of forgiveness, as we cancel it from our 
own memory, by an act of forgetfulness. 
But God takes his own way, and most 
steadfastly asserts, throughout the whole 
process of our recovery, the prerogatives of 
his own truth, and his own righteousness. 
He so loved the world, as to send his Son 
to it, not to condemn, but to save. But he 
will not save us in such a way as to con- 
firm our light estimation of sin, or to let 
down the worth and dignity of his own 
character. The method of our salvation is 
not left to the random caprices of human 
thought, and human fancy. It is a method 
devised for us by unsearchable wisdom, 
and made known to us by fixed and unal- 
terable truth, and prescribed to us by a su- 
preme authority, which has debarred every 
other method ; and though we may behold 



no one feature, either of greatness or of 
beauty to admire in it — yet do angels ad • 
mire it; and to accomplish it, did the Son 
of God move from the residence of his glory, 
and all heaven appears to have laboured 
with the magnitude and the mystery of the 
great undertaking ; and along the whole 
tract of revelation, from the first age of the 
world, do we behold the notices of the 
coming atonement ; and while man sits at 
his ease, and can see nothing to move him 
either to gratitude or to wonder, in the 
evolution of that mighty scheme, by which 
mercy and truth have been made to meet 
together, and righteousness and peace to 
kiss each other, — it is striking to mark the 
place and the prominency which are given 
to it, in the councils of the Eternal. And 
it might serve to put us right, and to re- 
buke the levities which are so currently 
afloat in this dead and darkened world, did 
we only look at the stress that is laid on 
this great work, throughout the whole of 
its preparation and its performance,— and 
how, to bring it to its accomplishment, the 
Father had to send the Son into the world, 
and to throw a veil over his glory, — and to 
put the cup of our chastisement into his 
hand, — and to bid the sword of righteous 
vengeance awake against his fellow, — and, 
that he might clear a way of access to a 
guilty world, had to do it through the 
blood of an everlasting covenant, — and to 
lay the full burden of our atonement on the 
head of the innocent sufferer, — and to en- 
dure the spectacle of his bitterness, and his 
agonies, and his tears, till he cried out that 
it was finished, and so bowed himself and 
gave up the ghost. 

Man is blind to the necessity, but God 
sees it. The prayer of Christ in his agony 
was, that the cup, if possible, might be re- 
moved from him. But it was not possible. 
He could have called twelve legions of an- 
gels, and they would have eagerly flown to 
rescue their beloved Lord from the hands 
of his persecutors. But he knew that the 
Scripture must be fulfilled, and they look- 
ed on in silent forbearance. It behooved 
him to undergo all this. And there was a 
need, and a propriety, why he should suf- 
fer all these things, ere he entered into his 
glory. 

We shall offer three distinct remarks on 
this method of our redemption, in order to 
prove that it fulfils the whole assertion of 
our text, that it has made mercy and truth 
to meet together, and righteousness and 
peace to kiss each other. 

First, it maintains the entireness and 
glory of all the attributes of the Godhead. 
Secondly, it provides a solid foundation for 
the peace of every sinner who concurs in 
it. And, thirdly, it strengthens all the se- 
curities for the cause of practical righteous- 
! ness among men. 



XVI.] 



DEPRAVITY OF 



HUMAN NATURE. 



219 



I. In darkness, as we are, about the glory 
and character of the Supreme Being, it 
would offer a violence even to our habitual 
conceptions of him, to admit of any limit, 
or any deduction from the excellencies of 
his nature. We should even think it a lessen- 
ing of the Deity, were the extent of his 
perfections such, as that we should be able 
to grasp them within the comprehension 
of our understandings. The property of 
chiefest admiration to his creatures is, that 
they know but a part, and are not aware 
how small a part that is, to what is un- 
known ; and never is their obeisance more 
lowly, than when, under the sense of a 
greatness that is undefined and unsearch- 
able, they feel themselves baffled by the in- 
finitude of the Creator. It is not his power, 
as attested by all that exists within the 
limits of actual discovery ; but his power, 
as conceived to form and uphold a uni- 
verse, whose outskirts are unknown. — It is 
not his wisdom, as exhibited in what has 
been seen by human eye ; but his wisdom, 
as pervading the unnumbered secresies of 
mechanism, which no eye can penetrate. 
It is not his knowledge, as displayed in the 
greater and prophetic outlines of the his- 
tory of this world ; but his knowledge, as 
embracing all the mazes of creation, and 
all the mighty periods of eternity. — It is 
not his antiquity, as prior to all that is visi- 
ble, and as reaching far above and beyond 
the remote infancy of nature ; but his an- 
tiquity, as retiring upwards from the lof- 
tiest ascent of our imaginations, and lost in 
the viewless depth of an existence, that 
was from everlasting. — These are what 
serve to throne the Deity in grandeur inac- 
cessible. It is the thought of what eye hath 
not seen, and ear hath not heard, neither 
hath it entered into the heart of man to 
conceive, that places him on such a height 
of mystery before us. And should we ever 
be able to overtake, in thought, the dimen- 
sions of any attribute that belongs to him, 
— and far more should we ever be able to 
outstrip, in fancy, a single feature of that 
character which is realised by the living 
and reigning God, — should defect or im- 
potency attach to him who dwelleth in the 
light which no man can approach unto, 
would we feel as if all our most rooted and 
accustomed conceptions of the Godhead 
had sustained an overthrow, would we feel 
as if the sanctuary of him who is the King 
eternal and invisible had suffered violence. 

And this is just as true of the moral as 
of the natural attributes of the Godhead. 
"When we think of his truth, it is a truth 
which, if heaven and earth stand committed 
to the fulfilment of its minutest article, 
heaven and earth must, for its vindication, 
pass away. When we think of his holiness, 
it is such that, if sin offer to draw nigh, a 
devouring fire goeth forth to burn up and to 



destroy it. When we think of his law, it is 
a law which must be made honourable, 
even though, by the enforcement of its 
sanctions, it shall sweep into an abyss of 
misery all the generations of the rebellious. 
And yet this God, just, and righteous, and 
true, is a God of love, and of compassion, 
infinite. He is slow to anger, and of great 
mercy. He does not afflict willingly ; and 
as a father rejoices over his children, does 
he long to rejoice in tenderness over us all ; 
and out of the store-house of a grace that is 
inexhaustible, does he deal out the offers 
of pardon and reconciliation to every one 
of us. Even in some way or other does the 
love of God for his creatures find its way 
through the barrier of their sinfulness ; and 
he who is of purer eyes than to behold 
iniquity, — he who hath spoken the word, 
and shall he not perform it, — he of whose 
law it has been said, that not one jot or one 
tittle of it, shall pass away, till all be ful- 
filled, — he holds out the overtures of friend- 
ship to the children of disobedience, and 
invites the guiltiest among them to the 
light of his countenance, in time, and to the 
enjoyment of his glory and presence, in 
eternity. 

There is no one device separate from the 
gospel, by which the glory of any one of 
these attributes can be exalted, but by the 
surrender or the limitation of another attri- 
bute. It is in the gospel alone that we per- 
ceive how each of them may be heightened 
to infinity, and yet each of them reflect a 
lustre on the rest. When Christ died, jus- 
tice was magnified. When he bore the 
burden of our torment, the truth of God re- 
ceived its vindication. When the sins of 
the world brought him to the cross, the 
lesson taught by this impressive spectacle 
was, holiness unto the Lord. All the se- 
verer perfections of the Godhead, were, in 
fact, more powerfully illustrated by the 
deep and solemn propitiation that was made 
for sin, than they could have been by the 
direct punishment of sin itself. — Yet all re- 
dounding to the triumph of his mercy. — 
For mercy, in the exercise of a simple and 
spontaneous tenderness, does not make so 
high an exhibition, as mercy forcing its 
way through restraints and difficulties, — as 
mercy accomplishing its purposes by a 
plan of unsearchable wisdom, — as mercy 
surrendering what was most dear for the 
attainment of its object, — as the mercy of 
God, not simply loving the world, but so 
loving it as to send his only beloved Son, 
and to lay upon him the iniquities of us 
all, — as mercy, thus surmounting a barrier 
which, to created eye, appeared immove- 
able, and which both pours a glory on the 
other excellencies of the Godhead, and re- 
joices over them. 

It is the gospel of Jesus Christ, which has 
poured the light of day into all the intri- 



220 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



cacies of this contemplation. We there see 
no compromise, and no surrender, of the 
attributes to each other. We see no mutual 
encroachment on their respective provinces, 
— no letting down of that entire and abso- 
lute perfection which belongs to every part 
in the character of the Godhead. The jus- 
tice of God has not been invaded ; for by 
him, who poured out his soul unto the 
death for us, has the whole weight of this 
aggrieved and offended attribute been borne ; 
and from that cross of agony, where he 
cried out that it was finished, does the di- 
vine Justice send forth a brighter and a 
nobler radiance of vindicated majesty, than 
if the minister of vengeance had gone forth 
and wreaked the whole sentence of con- 
demnation on every son and daughter of 
the species. And as the justice of God has 
suffered no encroachment, so, such is the 
admirable skilfulness of this expedient, that 
the mercy of God is restrained by no limi- 
tation. It is arrested in its offers by no 
questions about the shades, and the degrees, 
and the varieties of sinfulness. It stops at 
no point in the descending scale of human 
depravity. The blood of Christ cleansing 
from all sin, has spread such a field for its 
invitations, that in the full confidence of a 
warranted and universal commission, may 
the messengers of grace walk over the face 
of the world, and lay the free gift of ac- 
ceptance at the door of every individual, 
and of every family. Such is the height, 
and depth, and breadth, and length, of the 
mercy of God in Christ Jesus ; and yet it is 
a mercy so exercised, as to keep the whole 
council and character of God unbroken, — 
and a mercy, from the display of which, 
there beams a brighter radiance than ever 
from each lineament in the image of the 
Godhead. 

Now if the glory of God be so involved 
in this way of redemption, what shall we 
think of the disparagement, that is rendered 
to him, and to all his attributes, by the man 
who, without respect to the work and -the 
righteousness of Christ, seeks to be justified 
by his own righteousness? It is quite possi- 
ble for man to toil and to waste his strength 
on the object of his salvation, and yet, by all 
he can make out, may be only widening* 
his laborious deviation from the path which 
leads to it. Do his uttermost to establish a 
righteousness of his own, and what is the 
whole fruit of his exertion ?— the mere 
semblance of righteousness, without the in- 
fusion of its essential quality, — labour with- 
out love,— the drudgery of the hand, without 
the desire and devotedness of the heart, as 
its inspiring principle. If the man be dis- 
satisfied, as he certainly ought to be, then a 
sense of unexpiated guilt will ever and anon 
intrude itself upon his fears ; and a resist- 
less conviction of the insufficiency of all his 
performances will never cease to haunt and 



to paralyze him. In these circumstances, 
there may be the conformity of the letter 
extorted from him, in the spirit of bondage ; 
but the animating soul is not there, which 
turns obedience into a service of delight and 
a service of affection. In Heaven's account, 
such obedience as this is but the mockery 
of a lifeless skeleton ; and, even as a skele- 
ton, it is both wanting in its parts, and 
unshapely in its proportions. It is an obe- 
dience defective, even in the tale and mea- 
sure of its external duties. But what per- 
vades the whole of it by the element of 
worthlessness is, that, destitute of love to 
God, it is utterly destitute of a celestial cha- 
racter, and can never prepare an inhabitant 
of this world for the joys or the services of 
the great celestial family. 

And, on the other hand, if the man be 
satisfied, this very circumstance gives to the 
righteousness that he would establish for 
himself, the character of an insult upon 
God, instead of a reverential offering. It is 
a righteousness accompanied with a certain 
measure of confident feeling, that it is good 
enough for the acceptance of the Lawgiver* 
There is in it the audacity of a claim and 
a challenge upon his approbation. Short 
as it is, in respect of outward performance, 
and tainted within by the very spirit of 
earthliness, it is brought like a lame and dis- 
eased victim in sacrifice, and laid upon the 
altar before him. It is an evil and a bitter 
thing to sin against God ; but it is a still 
more direct outrage upon his attributes, to 
expect that he will look on sinfulness with 
complacency. It is an open defiance to the 
law, to trample upon its requirements ; but 
it were a still deadlier overthrow of its au- 
thority, to reverse its sanctions, and *nake 
it turn its threatenings into rewards. The 
sinner who disobeys and trembles, renders 
at least the homage of his fears to the truth 
and power of the Eternal. But the sinner 
who makes a righteousness of his infirmi- 
ties; and puts a gloss upon his disobedience, 
and brings the accursed thing to the gate of 
the sanctuary, and bids the piercing eye of 
Omniscience look upon it, and be satisfied, 
—tell us whether the fire which cometh 
forth will burn up the offering, that it may 
rise in sweetly smelling savour to him who 
sitteth on the throne ; or will it seize on the 
presumptuous offerer, who could thus dare 
the inspection, and thrust his unprepared 
footstep within the precincts of unspotted 
holiness ? 

And how must it go to aggravate the of- 
fence of such an approach, when it is made 
in the face of another righteousness which 
God himself hath provided, and in which 
alone he hath proclaimed that it is safe for 
a sinner to draw nigh. When the alterna- 
tive is fairly proposed, to come on the merit 
of your own obedience and tried by it, or 
to come on the merit of the obedience of 



XVI.J 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



221 



Christ, and receive in your own person the 
reward which he hath purchased for you, — 
only think of the aspect it must bear in the 
eye of Heaven, when the offer of the perfect 
righteousness is contemptuously set aside, 
and the sinner chooses to appear in his own 
character before the presence of the Eternal. 
When the imputation of vanity and useless- 
ness is thus fastened on all that the Son hath 
done, and on all that the Father hath devised 
for the redemption of the guilty, — when 
that righteousness, to accomplish which, 
Christ had to travail in the greatness of his 
strength, is thus held to be nothing, by crea- 
tures whose every thought, and every per- 
formance, have the stain of corruption in 
them — when that doctrine of his death, on 
which, in the book of God's counsel, is made 
to turn the deliverance of our world, is 
counted to be foolishness, — when the sinner 
thus persists in obtruding his own virtue on 
the notice of the Lawgiver, and refuses to 
put on, as a covering of defence, the virtue 
of his Saviour, — we have only to contrast 
the lean, shrivelled, paltry dimensions of the 
one, with the faultless, and sustained, and 
Godlike perfection of the other, to perceive 
how desperate is the folly, and how un- 
escapable is the doom of him who hath 
neglected the great salvation. 

It is thus that the refusal of Christ, as our 
righteousness, stamps a deeper and a more 
atrocious character of rebellion on the guilty 
than before, — and it is thus that the word 
of his mouth, like a two-edged sword, per- 
forms one function on him who accepts, 
and an opposite function on him who de- 
spises it. If the gospel be not the savour of 

v life unto life, it will be the savour of death 
unto death. If- it be not a rock of confi- 
dence, it will be a rock of offence, and it will 
fall upon him who resists it, and grind him 
into powder. If we kiss not the Son, in the 
day of our peace, the day of his wrath is 
coming, and who shall be able to stand when 

. "his anger is kindled but a little? We have 
already offended God by the sinfulness of 
our practice, — we may yet offend him still 
more by the haughtiness of our pretensions. 
The evil of our best works constitutes them 
an abomination in his sight; but nothing 
remains to avert the hostility of his truth 
and his holiness against us, if by those works 
we seek to be justified. It will indeed be 
the sealing up of our iniquity, if our obe- 
dience, impregnated as it is with the very 
spirit of that iniquity, shall be set up in rival- 
ship to the obedience of his only and well 
beloved Son, — if, by viewing the defect of 
our righteousness, as a thing of indifference, 
and the fulness of his, as a thing of no value, 
we shall heap insult upon transgression, — 
and if, after the provocation of a broken law, 
we shall maintain the boastful attitude of 
him who hath won the merit and the re- 
ward of victory, and in this attitude add the 



farther provocation of a slighted and re- 
jected gospel. 

II. We shall conclude, for the present, 
these brief and imperfect remarks, by ad- 
verting to the solidity of that foundation of 
peace, which the gospel scheme of mercy 
provides for every sinner who concurs in 
it. It is altogether worthy of observation, 
how, under this exquisite contrivance, the 
very elements of disquietude in a sinner's 
bosom, are turned into the elements of com- 
fort and confidence in the mind of a be- 
liever. It is the unswerving truth of God, 
which haunts the former by the thought of 
the certainty of his coming vengeance. But 
this very truth, committed to the fulfilment 
of all those promises, which are yea and 
amen in Christ Jesus, sustains the latter by 
the thought of the certainty of his coming 
salvation. It is justice, unbending justice, 
which sets such a seal on the condemnation 
of the disobedient, that every sinner who is 
out of Christ, feels it to be irrevocable. In 
Christ, this attribute, instead of a terror, be- 
comes a security ; for it is just in God to 
justify him who believes in Jesus. It is the 
sense of God's violated authority which fills 
the heart of an awakened sinner with the 
fear that he is undone. But this authority 
under the gospel proclamation, is leagued 
on the side of comfort, and not of fear ; for 
this is the commandment of God, that we 
believe in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
as he has given us commandment. It is not 
by an act of mercy, triumphing over the 
other attributes, that pardon is extended to 
the sinful ; for, under the economy of the 
gospel, these attributes are all engaged on 
the side of mercy; and God is not only 
merciful, but he is faithful and just in for- 
giving the sins of those who accept of Christ, 
as he is offered to them in the gospel. Those 
very perfections, then, which fix and neces- 
sitate the doom of the rebellious, form into 
a canopy of defence around the head of the 
believer. The guarantees of a sinner's pun- 
ishment now become the guarantees of 
promise; and while, like the flaming sword 
at the gate of paradise, they turn every 
way, and shut him out of every access to 
the Deity but one, — let him take to that 
one, and they instantly become to him the 
sureties and the safe-guard of that hiding- 
place into which he has entered. 

The foundation, then, of a believer's peace, 
is, in every way, as sure and as solid as is 
the foundation of a sinner's fears. The very 
truth which makes the one tremble, because 
staked to the execution of an unfulfilled 
threat, ministers to the other the strongest 
consolation. It is impossible for God to lie, 
says an awakened sinner, and this thought 
pursues him with the agony of an arrow 
sticking fast. It is impossible for God to 
lie, says a believer ; and as he hath not only 
said but sworn, there are two immutable * 



222 



DEPRAVITY OF H 



UMAX NATURE. 



[SERM. 



things by which to anchor the confidence 
of him who hath fled for refuge to the hope 
set before him. He staggers not at the 
promises of God, because of unbelief. He 
holds himself steadfast, by simply counting 
him to be faithful who hath promised. It 
is through that very faith, by being strong 
in which he gives glory to God, that he 



gains peace to his own heart ; and the jus- 
tice which beams a terror on all who stand 
without, utterty passes by the shielded head 
of him who hath turned to the strong hold, 
and taken a place under the shadow of his 
wings, who hath satisfied the justice of God, 
and taken upon himself the burden of its 
fullest vindication. 



SERMON XVII. 

The purifying Influence of the Christian Faith- 
" Sanctified by faith." — Acts xxvi. 18. 



III. It is a matter of direct and obvious 
understanding, how the law, by its promises 
and its threaten ings, should exert an influ- 
ence over human conduct. We seem to 
walk in a plain path, when we pass onwards 
from the enforcements of the law, to the 
effect of them on the fears, and the hopes, 
and the purposes of man. Do this, and you 
shall live ; and do the opposite of this, and 
you shall forfeit life, form two clear and 
distinct processes, in the conceiving of 
which, there is no difficulty whatever. The 
motive and the movement both stand intel- 
ligibly out. to the discernment of common 
sense ; nor in the application of such argu- 
ment as this, to the design of operating on 
the character or life of a human being, is 
there any mystery to embarrass, any hidden 
step, which, by baffling our every attempt 
to seize upon it, leaves us in a state of help- 
less perplexity. 

The same is not true of tke gospel, or of 
the manner in which it operates on the 
springs of human action. It is not so rea- 
dily seen how its privileges can be appro- 
priated by faith, and at the same time its 
precepts can retain their practical authority 
over the conduct of a believer. There is an 
alarm, and an honest alarm, on the part of 
many, lest a proclamation of free grace unto 
the world, should undermine all our securi- 
ties for the cause of righteousness in the 
world. They look with jealousy upon the 
freeness. They fear lest a deed so ample 
and unconditional, of forgiveness for the 
past, should give rise, in the heart of a sin- 
ner, to a secure opinion of its impunity for 
the future. What they dread is, that to pro- 
claim such a freeness of pardon on the part 
of God, would be to proclaim a correspond- 
ing freeness of practice on the part of man. 
They are able to comprehend how the law, 
by its direct enforcements, should operate 
in keeping men from sin ; but they are not 
able to comprehend how, when not under 
the law, but under grace, theie should con- 



tinue the same motives to abstain from sin, 
as those intelligible ones which the law 
furnishes, or even other motives of more 
powerful operation. We are quite sure that 
there is something here which needs to be 
made plain to the understandings of a very 
numerous class of inquirers, — a knot of dif- 
ficulty which needs to be untied, — a hidden 
step in the process of explanation, on which 
they may firmly pass from what is known 
to what is unknown. There are not two 
terms in the whole compass of human lan- 
guage, which stand more frequently and 
more familiarly contrasted with each other, 
than those of faith and good works; and 
this, not merely on the question of our ac- 
ceptance before God, but also on the ques- 
tion of the personal character and acquire- 
ments of a true disciple of Christ. It is 
positively not seen, how the possession of 
the one should at all stimulate to the per- 
formance of the other, — how the peace of 
the gospel should reside in the same heart, 
from which there emanates, on the life of a 
believer, the practice of the gospel, — how a 
righteousness that is without the deeds of 
the law, should stand connected, in the ac- 
tual history of him who obtains it, with a 
zealous, and diligent, and every-day doing 
of these deeds. 

There is much in all this to puzzle the 
man who is experimentally a stranger to 
the truth as it is in Jesus. Nor does it at 
all serve to extricate or to enlighten him, 
when he is made to perceive, that, in point 
of fact, those men who most cordially assent 
to the doctrine of salvation being all of grace 
and not of works, are most assiduous in so 
walking, and in so working, and in so pains- 
taking, as if salvation were all of works, 
and not of grace. The fact is quite obvious 
and unquestionable. But the principle on 
which it rests, remains a mystery to the 
general eye of the world. They marvel, but 
they go no farther. They see that thus it 
is, but they see not how it is ; and they put 



XVII.] 



DEPRAVITY OF 



HUMAN NATURE. 



223 



it down among those inexplicable oddities 
which do at times occur, both in the moral 
and natural kingdom of the creation. 

But in all our attempts to dissipate this 
obscurity, it is well to advert to the total 
difference between him who has the faith, 
and him who has it not. The one has the 
materials of the argument under his eye, 
and within the grasp of his handling. The 
other may be able to recognize in the argu- 
ment, a logical and consistent process 5 but 
he is at a loss about the simple conceptions, 
which form the materials of the argument. 
He is like a man w T ho can perform all the 
manipulations of an algebraical process, 
while he feels not the force or the signifi- 
cancy of the symbols. His habits of ratio- 
cination enable him to perceive, that there 
is a connexion between the ideas in the ar- 
gument. But the ideas themselves are not 
manifest to him. It is not in the power of 
reasoning to supply this want. Reasoning 
cannot create the primary materials of the 
argument. It only cements them together. 
And here it is, that you are met by the im- 
potency of human demonstration, — and are 
reduced to the attitude of knocking at a 
door which you cannot open, — and feel 
your need of an enlightening spirit, — and 
are made to perceive, that it is only on the 
threshold of Christianity, where you can 
hold the intercourse of a common sympa- 
thy and understanding with the world, — 
and that to be admitted to the mysteries of 
the kingdom of heaven, you must pass into 
a region of manifestation, where the world 
cannot follow, but where it will cast the 
imputation of madness and of mysticism 
after you. 

Without attempting to define faith, as to 
the nature of it, which could not be done 
but with other words more simple than 
itself, let us look to the objects of faith, and 
see whether there do not emanate from them, 
a sanctifying influence on the heart of every 
real believer. 

First, then, the whole object of faith, is 
the matter of the testimony of God in 
Scripture. So that though faith be a single 
principle, and is designated in language by 
a single term, — yet this by no means pre- 
cludes it from being such a principle, as 
comes into contact, and is conversant, with a 
very great variety of objects. In this re- 
spect it may bear a resemblance to sight, 
or hearing, or any other of the senses, by 
which man holds communication with the 
external things that are near him, and 
around him. The same eye which, when 
open, looks to a friend, and can, from that 
very look, afford entrance into the heart for 
an emotion of tenderness, will also behold 
other visible things, and take in an appro- 
riate influence from each of them, — will 
ehold the prospect of beauty that is before 
it, and thence obtain gratification to the 



taste, — or will behold the sportive felicity of 
animals, and thence obtain gratification to the 
benevolence, — or will behold the precipice 
beneath, and thence obtain a warning of 
danger, or a direction of safety, — or may 
behold a thousand different objects, and 
obtain a thousand different feelings and 
different intimations. 

Now the same of faith. It has been called 
the eye of the mind. But whether this be 
a well conceived image or not, it certainly 
affords an inlet to the mind for a great 
variety of communications. The Apostle 
calls faith the evidence of things not seen, — 
not of one such thing, but of very many 
such things. The man who possesses faith, 
can be no more intellectually blind to one of 
these things, and at the same time knowing 
and believing as to another of them, than 
the man who possesses sight can, with his 
eye open, perceive one external object, and 
have no perception of another, which stands 
as nearly and as conspicuously before him. 
The man who is destitute of sight, will 
never know what it is to feel the charm of 
visible scenery. But grant him sight ; and 
he will not only be made alive to this 
charm, but to a multitude of other influ- 
ences, all emanating from the various ob- 
jects of visible nature, through the eye upon 
the mind, and against which his blindness 
had before opposed a hopeless and invinci- 
ble barrier. And the man who is destitute 
of faith, will never know what it is to feel 
the charm of the peace-speaking blood of 
Christ. But grant him faith ; and he will 
not only be made alive to this charm, but 
to a multitude of other influences, all ema- 
nating from the various truths of revela- 
tion, through this intellectual organ, on the 
heart of him who was at one time blind, 
but has now been made to see. This will 
help, in some measure, to clear up the per- 
plexity to which we have just now adverted. 
They who are under its darkening influ- 
ence, conceive of the faith which worketh 
peace, that it has only to do with one doc- 
trine, and that that one doctrine relates to 
Christ, as a peace-offering for sin. Now, it 
is very true, that it has to do with this one 
doctrine ; but it has also to do with other 
doctrines, all equally presented before it in 
the very same record, and the view of all 
which is equally to be had, from the very 
same quarter of contemplation. In other 
words, the very same opening of the men- 
tal eye, through which the peace of the 
gospel finds entrance into the bosom of a 
faithful man, affords an entrance for the 
righteousness of the gospel along with it. 
The truth that Christ died for the sins of 
the world, will cast upon his mind its ap- 
propriate influence. But so also will the 
truth that Christ is to judge the world, and 
the truth that unless ye repent ye shall 
perish, and the truth that they who have a 



224 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



right to the tree of life, are they who keep 
the commandments, and the truth that an 
unrighteous man shall not inherit the king- 
dom of God. If a man see not every one 
object that is placed within the sphere of 
his natural vision, he sees none of them, 
and his whole body is full of darkness. If 
a man believe the Bible to be the word of 
God, he will read it ; but if he read it, and 
believe not every. one truth that lies within 
the grasp of his understanding, he believes 
none of them, and is in darkness, and 
knoweth not whither he is going. 

If I open the door of my mind to the 
word of God, I as effectually make it the 
repository of various truths, as, if I open 
the door of my chamber, and take in the 
Bible, I make this chamber the repository 
of the book, and of every chapter, and of 
every verse, that is contained in it. I thus 
bring my mind into contact with every one 
influence, that every one truth is fitted to 
exercise over it. If there be nothing in 
these truths contradictory to each other, 
(and if there be, let this set aside, as it 
ought, the authority of the whole commu- 
nication,) then the mind acts a right and 
consistent part in believing each of them, 
and in submitting itself to the influence of 
each of them. And thus it is, that believing 
the propitiation which is through the blood 
of Christ, for the remission of sins that are 
past, I may feel through him the peace of 
reconciliation with the Father; and be- 
lieving that he who cometh unto Christ for 
forgiveness must forsake all, I may also 
feel the necessity which lies upon me of 
departing from all iniquity ; and believing 
that in myself there is no strength for the 
accomplishment of such a task, I may look 
around for other expedients, than such as 
can be devised by my own natural wisdom, 
or carried into effect by my own natural 
energies; and believing that, in the hand 
of Christ there are gifts for the rebellious, 
and that one of these gifts is the Holy Spirit 
to strengthen his disciples, I may look to 
him for my sanctification, even as I look 
unto him for my redemption : and believing 
that the gift is truly promised as an answer 
to prayer, I may mingle a habit of prayer, 
with a habit of watchfulness and of en- 
deavour. And thus may I go abroad over 
the whole territory of divine truth, and turn 
to its legitimate account every separate por- 
tion of it, and be in all a trusting, and a 
working, and a praying, and a rejoicing, 
and a trembling disciple, — and that, not be- 
cause I have given myself up to the guidance 
of clashing and contradictory principles, — 
but because, with a faith commensurate to 
the testimony of God, I give myself over 
in my whole mind, and whole person, to 
the authority of a whole Bible. 

But secondly, let us take what some may 
think a more restricted view of the object 



of faith, and suppose it to be Jesus Christ 
in his person and in his character. It is a 
summary, but at the same time a most true 
and substantial affirmation, that we are 
saved by faith in Christ. And yet this very 
affirmation, true as it is, may have been so 
misunderstood as to darken the minds of 
many, into the very misconception that we 
are attempting to expose. I could not be 
said to have faith in an acquaintance, if I 
believed not all that he told me. Nor have 
I faith in Christ, if I believe not every item 
of that communication of which he is the 
author, either by himself or by his mes- 
sengers. So that faith in Christ, so far from 
excluding any of the truths of the Bible, 
comprehends our assent to them all. But 
we are willing to admit, that the phrase is 
calculated to fasten our attention more par- 
ticularly on such truth as relates, in a more 
immediate manner, to the person and the 
doings of the Saviour. Take it in this 
sense, and you will find, that though emi- 
nently and directly fitted to work peace in 
the heart of a believer, it is just as directly 
and powerfully on the side of his practical 
righteousness. When I think of Christ, and 
think of him as one who has poured out his 
soul unto the death for me, I feel a confi- 
dence in drawing near unto God. When 
employed in this contemplation, I look to 
him as a crucified Saviour. But without 
keeping mine eye for a single moment from 
off his person,— without another exercise 
of mind, than that by which I look unto 
Jesus, simply and entirely, as he is set forth 
unto me, — I also behold him at one time as 
an exalted Saviour, and at another time as 
a commanding Saviour, and at another time 
as a strengthening Saviour. In other words, 
by the mere work of faith in Christ, 1 bring 
my heart into contact with all those motives, 
and all those elements of influence, which 
give rise to the new obedience of the gos- 
pel. When the veil betwixt me and the 
Saviour is withdrawn, — when God shines 
in my heart with the light of the know- 
ledge of his own glory in the face of his 
Son, — when the Spirit taketh of the things 
of Christ, and showeth them unto me, and 
I am asked which of the things it is that is 
most fitted to arrest a convicted sinner, in 
the midst of his cries and prayers for de- 
liverance,— I would say, that it was Christ 
lifted up on the cross of his offences, and 
pouring out the blood of that mighty ex- 
piation, by which the guilt of them all is 
washed away. This is the rock on which 
he will build all his hopes of acceptance 
before God. He will look unto Christ and 
be at peace. But this is not the only atti- 
tude in which Christ is revealed to him. 
He will look to Christ as an example. He 
will look to him as a teacher. He will look 
to him in all the capacities which are at- 
tached to the person, or identified with the 



XVII.] 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



225 



doings of the Saviour. He will look to him 
asserting his right of authority and disposal 
over those whom he has purchased unto 
himself. He will, by the eye of faith, see 
that rebuking glance which our Saviour cast 
over the misconduct of his disciples,— and 
which, when Peter saw, by the eye of sight, 
he was so moved by the spectacle, that he 
went out and wept bitterly. That meek- 
ness and gentleness of Christ, in the name 
of which, Paul besought his disciples to 
walk no more after the flesh, will be pre- 
sent in its influence on those who, though 
they see him not, yet believe him, and have 
their conceptions filled and satisfied with 
his likeness. They will behold him to be 
an exalted Prince, as well as an exalted Sa- 
viour, and they will count it a faithful say- 
ing, that he came to sanctify as w T ell as re- 
deem, — and they will look upwards to his 
present might as a commander, as well as 
forwards to his future majesty as a judge, — 
and they will be thoroughly persuaded, that 
to persevere in sin, is altogether to thwart 
the great aim of the enterprize of our re- 
demption, — and they will understand as 
Paul did, who affirmed, with expostulations 
and tears, that the enemies of righteousnes 
are also the enemies of the cross ; — and 
thus, from Christ, in all his various attitudes 
will a moralizing power descend on the 
hearts of those who really believe in him, — 
and as surely as any man possesses the 
faith that is in Christ Jesus, so surely will 
he be sanctified by that faith. 

And, thirdly, let us confine our attention 
still farther, to one particular article of our 
Waith. Paul was determined to know no- 
nhing, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 
Now, conceive faith to attach itself to the 
latter clause of this verse, and that Christ 
crucified, for the time being, is the single 
object of its contemplation. There is still 
no such thing as a true faith, attaching 
itself to this one object exclusively ; and 
though at one time it may be the sole con- 
templation which engrosses it, at other 
times it may have other contemplations. If, 
in fact, it shut out those other contempla- 
tions, which are furnished by the subject- 
matter of the testimony of God, it may be 
proved now, and it will be proved in the 
day of reckoning, to be no faith at all. But 
just as it has been said, that the mind can 
only think of one thing at a time, so faith 
may be employed, for a time, in looking 
only towards one object ; and as we said be- 



that one object. From what has been said 
already, it will be seen, that this one exer- 
cise of faith will not counteract the legiti- 
mate effect of the other exercises. But we 
should like to compute the influence of this 
one exercise on the heart and life of a be- 
liever. In the case of an Antinomian, the 
doctrine of the atonement may furnish a 
2 F 



pretext and a pacification to his conscience, 
under a wilful habit of perseverance in 
iniquity. But, if this partial faith of his be 
not a real faith, then we are not responsible 
for his conduct, nor ought he to be at all 
quoted as an exception against that alliance, 
for which we are contending, between the 
faith of the gospel and the cause of practical 
righteousness. Only grant the faith to be 
real, and as there is no one doctrine of the 
Bible, out of which it may not gather a pu- 
rifying influence to the heart, so out of this 
doctrine of the atonement, will such a puri- 
fying influence descend most abundantly on 
the heart of every genuine believer. 

For, it first takes away a wall of partition, 
which, in the case of every man who has 
not received this doctrine, lies across the 
path of his obedience at the very com- 
mencement. So long as I think that it is 
quite impossible for me so to run as to ob- 
tain, I will not move a single footstep. Un- 
der the burden of a hopeless controversy 
between me and God, I feel as it were 
weighed down to the inactivity of despair. 
I live without hope ; and so long as I do so, 
I live without God in the world. And be- 
sides, he, while the object of my terror, is 
also the object of my aversion. The help- 
less necessity under which I labour, so long 
as the question of my guilt remains unset- 
tled is to dread the Being w 7 horn I am com- 
manded to love. I may occasionally cast a 
feeble regard towards that distant and inac- 
cessible Lawgiver : But so long as I view 
him shrouded in the darkness of frowning 
majesty, I can place in him no trust, and I 
can bear towards him no filial tenderness, 
I may occasionally consult the require- 



ments of his law: But when I look to the 
uncancelled sentence that is against me, I 
can never tread, with hopeful or assured 
footsteps, on the career of obedience. But 
let me look unto Christ lifted up for our 
offences, and see the hand-writing of ordi- 
nances that was against us, and which was 

and 

there blotted out and taken out of the way ; 
and then I see the barrier in question level- 
led with the ground. I now behold the way 
of repentance cleared of the obstructions, 
by which it was aforetime rendered utterly 
impassable. This is the will of God — even 
your sanctification, rnay be sounded a thou- 
sand times in the ear of an unbeliever, and 
leave him as immoveable as it found him; 
because, while under a sense of unexpiated 
guilt, he sees a mighty parapet before him, 
which he cannot scale. But if the same 
words be sounded in the ears of a believer, 
they will put him into motion. For to him 
the parapet is opened up, and the rough 
way is made smooth, and the mountain and 
the hill are brought low, and the valley of 
separation is filled, and he is made to see 
the salvation of God. The path of obedience 



226 



DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



[SERM. 



is made level before him, and he enters it 
with the inspiration of a new and invigora- 
ting principle; and that love to God, which 
the consciousness of guilt will ever keep at 
a distance from the heart, now takes up the 
room of this terrifying, and paralysing, and 
alienating sentiment; and the reception of 
this doctrine of atonement is just as much 
the turning point of a new character, as it 
is the turning point of a new hope ; and it 
is the very point, in the history of every 
human soul, at which the alacrity of gospel 
obedience takes its commencement, as well 
as the cheerfulness of gospel anticipations. 
Till this doctrine be believed, there is no 
attempt at obedience at all; or else, it is 
such an obedience as is totally unanimated 
by the life and the love of real godliness. 
And it is not till this doctrine has taken 
possession of the mind, that any man can 
take up the language of the Psalmist, and 
say, " Lord, I am thy servant, I am thy ser- 
vant, thou hast loosed my bonds." 

Conceive, then, a believer with the career 
of obedience thus opened up and made 
hopeful to him, — conceive him with the ne- 
cessity of obedience made just as authen- 
tically known to him as are the tidings of 
his deliverance from guilt, — conceive a man 
who, by the act of rendering homage to the 
truth of God, rests a confidence in the death 
of Christ for pardon, and who also, by the 
very same act, subscribes to the sayings of 
Christ about repentance, and the new walk 
of the new creature, — and then let me ask 
you to think of the securities which encom- 
pass his mind, and protect it from the delu- 
sion that we have already alluded to. We 
have said that the peace which is felt in a 
vague apprehension of God's mercy, and 
which makes no account of his truth, or of 
his justice, has the effect of making him 
who entertains it altogether stationary, in 
point of acquirement. With the semblance 
of good that he has about him, he will meet 
the sterner attributes of the Deity. For his 
defect of real good, he will draw on the in- 
dulgent attributes of the Deity. He will 
make the character of God, suit itself to his 
own character, so that any stimulus to ad- 
vance or to perfect it, shall be practically 
done away. And thus it is, that along the 
whole range of human accomplishment, 
you may observe an unvaried state of re- 
pose, — the repose, in fact, of death, — for the 
repose of man who brought to the estimate 
of a spiritual law, will be found, to use the 
significant language of the Bible, dead in 
trespasses and sins, — sinning at one time 
without remorse, trusting at another time 
without foundation. 

Now the gospel scheme of mercy is clear 
of this abuse altogether. It comes forth 
upon the sinner with an antidote against 
this security, just as strong and as promi- 
nent as is its antidote against despair. In- 



somuch that the state of the believer, in re- 
spect of motive and of practical influence, 
is the very reverse of what we have now 
adverted to. In the act of becoming a be- 
liever, he awakens from the deep and uni- 
versal lethargy of nature. With his new 
hope commences his new life. He ceases 
to be stationary, — and what is more, he 
never ceases to be progressive. He does 
not satisfy himself with barely moving on- 
wards to a higher point in the scale of hu- 
man attainment, and then sitting down 
with the sentiment that it is enough. He 
never counts it enough. The practical atti- 
tude of the believer is that of one who is 
ever looking forwards. The practical move- 
ment of the believer is that of one who is 
ever pressing forwards. He could not, with- 
out a surrender of those essential principles 
which make him what he is, tarry at any 
one point in the gradation of moral excel- 
lence. It is not more inseparable from him 
to be ever doing well, than it is inseparable 
from him to be ever aspiring to do better. 
So that the paltry question about the de- 
grees and the comparisons of virtue, he en- 
tertains not for a moment; and, with all the 
aids and expedients of the gospel for help- 
ing his advancement, does he strenuously 
prosecute the work of conforming to the 
precept of the gospel, — to be growing in 
grace, to be perfecting himself in holiness. 

It has been a much controverted ques- 
tion, how far this process of continual ad- 
vancement will carry a believer in this 
world. Some affirm it will carry him to 
the point of absolute perfection. Others 
more cautiously satisfy themselves by the^ 
remark, that whether perfection be ever 
our attainment or not, it ought always to 
be our aim. And one thing seems to be 
certain, — that there is no such perfection 
in this world, as might bring along with it. 
the repose of victory. 

Paul counted all that was behind as no- 
thing, and he pressed onwards. And it is 
the experience of every Christian, who 
makes a real business of his sanctification, 
that there is a struggle between nature and 
grace, even unto the end. There is no dis- 
charge from this warfare, while we are in 
the body. To the last hour of life there 
will be the presence of a carnal nature to 
humble him, and to make him vigilant ; 
and, with every true Christian, there will 
be the ascendency of grace, so as that this 
nature shall not have the dominion over 
him. The corruption of the old man will 
be effectually resisted ; but not, we fear, till 
the materialism of our actual frames be re- 
solved into dust, will this corruption be 
destroyed. The flesh lusting against the 
spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, is the 
short but compendious description of the 
state of every believer in the world ; — and 
could the evil and adverse principle be 



XVH.] DEPRAVITY OF 

eradicated, as well as overborne, — could a 
living man bid the sinful propensity, with 
all its workings and all its inclinations, 
conclusively away from him, — could the 
authority of the new creature obtain such 
unrivalled, sway over the whole machinery 
of the affections and the doings, that re- 
sistance was no longer felt, and the battle was 
brought to its termination, — if it were pos- 
sible, we say, for a disciple, on this side of 
the grave, to attain the eminency of a con- 
dition so glorious, then we know not of 
what use to him would be either a death 
or a resurrection, or why he might not 
bear his earthly tabernacle to heaven, and 
set him down by direct translation amongst 
the company of the celestial. But no! 
There hangs about the person of the most 
pure and perfect Christian upon earth, 
some mysterious necessity of dying. That 
body, styled with such emphasis a vile 
body, by the Apostle, must be pulverized 
and made over again. And not till that 
which is sown in corruption shall be raised 
in incorruption, — not till that which is 
sown in weakness shall be raised in power, 
—not till that which is sown a natural 
body shall be raised a spiritual body, — not 
till the soul of man occupy another tene- 
ment, and the body which now holds him 
be made to undergo some unknown but 
glorious transformation, will he know what 
it is to walk at perfect liberty, and, with 
the full play of his then emancipated 
powers, to expatiate without frailty, and 
without a flaw, in the service of his God. 

We know that the impression which 
many have of the disciples of the gospel is, 
that their great and perpetual aim is, that 
they may be justified,— that the change of 
state which they are ever aspiring after, is 
a change in their forensic state, and not in 
their personal— that if they can only at- 
tain delivery from wrath, they will be sa- 
tisfied, — and that the only use they make 



HUMAN NATURE. 227 

of Christ, is, through his means, to obtain 
an erasure of the sentence of their con- 
demnation. Now, though this, undoubt- 
edly, be one great design of the gospel, it 
is not the design in which it terminates. 
It may, in fact, be only considered as a 
preparation for an ulterior accomplish- 
ment altogether. Christ came to redeem 
us from all iniquity, and to purify us unto 
himself a peculiar people, zealous of good 
works. It were selfishness under the guise 
of sacredness, to sit down, in placid con- 
tentment, with the single privilege of jus- 
tification. It is only the introduction to 
higher privileges. 

But not till we submit to the righteous- 
ness of Christ, as the alone meritorious 
plea of our acceptance, shall we become 
personally righteous ourselves, — not till we 
see the blended love and holiness of the 
Godhead, in our propitiation, shall we 
know how to combine a confidence in his 
mercy, with a reverence for his character, 
— not till we look to that great transac- 
tion, by which the purity of the divine na- 
ture is vindicated, and yet the sinner is 
delivered from the coming vengeance, shall 
we be freed from the dominion of sin, or 
be led to admire and to imitate the great 
Pattern of excellence. The renewing Spirit, 
indeed, is withheld from all those who 
withhold their consent from the doctrine 
of Christ, and of him crucified. Paul was 
determined to know nothing else ; and it is 
in this knowledge, and in this alone, that 
we are renewed after the image of him 
who created us. 

Now the God of peace, that brought 
again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that 
great Shepherd of the sheep, through the 
blood of the everlasting covenant, make 
you perfect in every good work to do his 
will, working in you that which is well- 
pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, 
to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen, 



DISCOURSES 



ON THE 

APPLICATION OF CHRISTIANITY 

TO THE 

COMMERCIAL AND ORDINARY AFFAIRS OF LIFE. 



PREFACE. 

The following Discourses can be regarded in no other light, than as the frag- 
ment of a subject far too extensive to be overtaken within a compass so narrow. 
There has only a partial survey been taken of the morality of the actions that 
are current among people engaged in merchandise : and with regard to the 
morality of the affections which stir in their hearts, and give a feverish and 
diseased activity to the pursuits of worldly ambition, this has scarcely been 
touched upon, save in a very general way in the concluding discourse. 

And yet, in the estimation of every cultivated Christian, this second branch of 
the subject should be by far the most interesting, — as it relates to that spiritual 
discipline by which the love of the world is overcome ; and by which all that 
oppressive anxiety is kept in check, which the reverses and uncertainties of 
business are so apt to inject into the bosom ; and by which the appetite that urges 
him who hasteth to be rich is effectually restrained — so as to make it possible 
for a man to give his hand to the duties of his secular occupation, and, at the same 
time, to maintain that sacredness of heart which becomes every fleeting traveller 
through a scene, all whose pleasures and whose prospects are so soon to pass away. 

Should this part of the subject be resumed at some future opportunity, there 
are two questions of casuistry connected with it, which will demand no small 
degree of consideration. The first relates to the degree in which an affection for 
present things, and present interests ought to be indulged. And the second is, 
whether, on the supposition that a desire after the good things of the present life 
were reduced down to the standard of the gospel, there would remain a sufficient 
impulse in the world for upholding its commerce, at the rate which would secure 
the greatest amount of comfort and subsistence to its families. 

Without offering any demonstration, at present, upon this matter, we simply 
state it as our opinion, that, though the whole business of the world were in the 
hands of men thoroughly Christianised, and who, rating wealth according to its 
real dimensions on the high scale of eternity, were chastened out of all their 
idolatrous regards to it — yet would trade, in these circumstances, be carried to the 
extreme limit of its being really productive or desirable. An affection for riches, 
beyond what Christianity prescribes, is not essential to any extension of com- 
merce that is at all valuable or legitimate ; and in opposition to the maxim, that 
the spirit of enterprise is the soul of commercial prosperity, do we hold, that it 
is the excess of this spirit beyond the moderation of the New Testament, which, 
pressing on the natural boundaries of trade, is sure, at length, to, visit every 
country where it operates, with the recoil of all those calamities, which in the 
shape of beggared capitalists, and unemployed operatives, and dreary intervals 
of bankruptcy and alarm, are observed to follow a season of overdone speculation. 

228 



( 229 ) 



/ 



DISCOURSE I. 

On the mercantile Virtues which may exist without the Influence of Christianity. 

** Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, 
whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report ; if there 
be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things."— Philippians iv. 8. 



The Apostle, in these verses, makes use of 
certain terms, without ever once proposing 
to advance any definition of their meaning. 
He presumes on a common understanding 
of this, between himself and the people 
whom he is addressing. He presumes that 
they know what is signified by Truth, and 
Justice, and Loveliness, and the other mo- 
ral qualities which are included in the enu- 
meration of our text. They, in fact, had 
words to express them, for many ages an- 
tecedent to the coming of Christianity into 
the world. Now, the very existence of the 
words proves, that, before the gospel was 
taught, the realities which they express 
must have existed also. These good and 
respectable attributes of character must 
have been occasionally exemplified by 
men, prior to the religion of the New Tes- 
tament. The virtuous and the praisewor- 
thy must, ere the commencement of the new 
dispensation, have been met with in society 
— for the Apostle does not take them up in 
this passage, as if they were unknown and 
unheard of novelties — but such objects of 
general recognition, as could be under- 
stood on the b?:;* mention of them, with- 
out warning and without explanation. 

But more than this. These virtues must 
not only have been exemplified by men, 
previous to the entrance of the gospel 
amongst them — seeing that the terms, ex- 
pressive of the virtues, were perfectly un- 
derstood — but men must have known how 
to love and to admire them. How is it that 
we apply the epithet lovely to any moral 
qualification, but only in as far as that 
qualification does in fact draw towards it a 
sentiment of love 7 How is it that another 
qualification is said to be of good report, 
but in as far as it has received from men 
an applauding or an honourable testimony ? 
The Apostle does not bid his readers have 
respect to such things as are lovely, and 
then, for the purpose of saving them from 
error, enumerate what the things are which 
he conceives to possess this qualification. 
He commits the matter, with perfect con- 
fidence, to their own sense and their own 
apprehension. He bids them bopr a re- 
spect to whatsoever things are lovely — 
nor does he seem at all suspicious that, by 
so doing, he leaves them in any darkness 
or uncertainty about the precise import of 
the advice which he is delivering. He 
therefore recognizes the competency of 



men to estimate the lovely and the honour- 
able of character. He appeals to a tribunal 
in their own breasts, and evidently sup- 
poses, that, antecedently to the light of the 
Christian revelation, there lay scattered 
among the species certain principles of feel- 
ing and of action, in virtue of which, they 
both occasionally exhibited what was just 
and true, and of good report, and also 
could render to such an exhibition, the ho- 
mage of their regard and of their reverence. 
At present we shall postpone the direct en- 
forcement of these virtues upon the ob- 
servation of Christians, and shall confine 
our thoughts of them to the object of esti- 
mating their precise importance and cha- 
racter, when they are realised by those who 
are not Christians. 

While we assert with zeal every doctrine 
of Christianity, let us not forget that there 
is a zeal without discrimination ; and that, 
to bring such a spirit to the defence of our 
faith, or of any one of its peculiarities, is 
not to vindicate the cause, but to discredit 
it. Now, there is a way of maintaining the 
utter depravity of our nature, and of doing 
it in such a style of sweeping and of ve- 
hement asseveration, as to render it not 
merely obnoxious to the taste, but obnoxious 
to the understanding. On this subject there 
is often a roundness and a temerity of an- 
nouncement, which any intelligent man, 
looking at the phenomena of human cha- 
racter with his own eyes, cannot go along 
with; and thus it is, that there are injudi- 
cious defenders of orthodoxy, who have 
mustered against it not merely a positive 
dislike, but a positive strength of observa- 
tion and argument. Let the nature of man 
be a ruin, as it certainly is, it is obvious to 
the most common discernment, that it does 
not offer one unvaried and unalleviated 
mass of deformity. There are certain 
phases, and certain exhibitions of this na- 
ture, which are more lovely than others — 
certain traits of character, not due to the 
operation of Christianity at all, and yet 
calling forth our admiration and our ten- 
derness — certain varieties of moral com- 
plexion, far more fair and more engaging 
than certain other varieties ; and to prove 
that the gospel may have had no share in 
the formation of them, they in fact stood 
out to the notice and respect of the world 
before the gospel was ever heard of. The 
classic page of antiquity sparkles with re- 



ON THE MERCANTILE VIRTUES WITHOUT CHRISTIANITY. 



[DISC. 



peated exemplifications of what is bright 
and beautiful in the character of man ; nor 
do all its descriptions of external nature 
waken up such an enthusiasm of pleasure, 
as when it bears testimony to some grace- 
ful or elevated doing out of the history of 
the species. And whether it be the kindli- 
ness of maternal affection, or the unwearied- 
ness of filial piety, or the constancy of tried 
and unalterable friendship, or the earnest- 
ness of devoted patriotism, or the rigour of 
unbending fidelity, or any other of the re- 
corded virtues which shed a glory over the 
remembrance of Greece and of Rome — we 
fully concede it to the admiring scholar, 
that they one and all of them were some- 
times exemplified in those days of Heathen- 
ism ; and that, out of the materials of a pe- 
riod, crowded as it was with moral abomi- 
nations, there may also be gathered things 
which are pure, and lovely, and true, and 
just, and honest, and of good report. 

What do we mean, then, it may be ask- 
ed, by the universal depravity of man? 
How shall we reconcile the admission now 
made, with the unqualified and authorita- 
tive language of the Bible, when it tells us 
of the totality and the magnitude of human 
corruption? Wherein lies that desperate 
wickedness, which is every where ascribed 
to all the men of all the families that be on 
the face of the earth ? And how can such 
a tribute of acknowledgment be awarded 
to the sages and the patriots of antiquity, 
who yet, as the partakers of our fallen na- 
ture, must be outcasts from the favour of 
God, and have the character of evil stamp- 
ed upon the imaginations of the thoughts 
of their hearts continually ? 

In reply to these questions, let us speak 
to your own experimental recollections on a 
subject in which you are aided, both by 
the consciousness of what passes within 
you, and by your observation of the cha- 
racters of others. Might not a sense of 
honour elevate that heart which is totally 
unfurnished with a sense of God ? Might 
not an impulse of compassionate feeling be 
sent into that bosom which is never once 
visited by a movement of duteous loyalty 
towards the Lawgiver in heaven ? Might 
not occasions of intercourse with the be- 
ings around us, develope whatever there is 
in our nature of generosity, and friendship, 
and integrity, and patriotism ; and yet the 
unseen Being, who placed us in this thea- 
tre, be neither loved, nor obeyed, nor listen- 
ed to? Amid the manifold varieties of 
human character, and the number of con- 
stitutional principles which enter into its 
composition, might there not be an indi- 
vidual in whom the constitutional virtues 
so blaze forth and have the ascendency, as 
to give a general effect of gracefulness to 
the whole of this moral exhibition ; and yet, 
may not that individual be as unmindful of 



his God, as if the principles of his consti- 
tution had been mixed up in such a differ- 
ent proportion, as to make him an odious 
and a revolting spectacle? In a word, 
might not Sensibility shed forth its tears, 
and Friendship perform its services, and 
Liberality impart of its treasure, and Pa- 
triotism earn the gratitude of its country, 
and Honour maintain itself entire and un- 
tainted, and all the softenings of what is 
amiable, and all the glories of what is 
chivalrous and manly gather into one 
bright effulgency of moral accomplishment 
on the person of him who never, for a sin- 
gle day of his life, subordinates one habit, 
or one affection, to the will of the Al- 
mighty ; who is just as careless and as un- 
concerned about God, as if the native ten- 
dencies of his constitution had compounded 
him into a monster of deformity ; and who 
just as effectually realizes this attribute of 
rebellion against his Maker, as the most 
loathsome and profligate of the species, 
that he walks in the counsel of his own 
heart, and after the sight of his own eyes ? 

The same constitutional variety may be 
seen on the lower fields of creation. You 
there witness the gentleness of one animal, 
the affectionate fidelity of another, the cruel 
and unrelenting ferocity of a third ; and 
you never question the propriety of the 
language, when some of these instinctive 
tendencies are better reported of than 
others ; or when it is said of the former of 
them, that they are the more fine, and amia- 
ble, and endearing. But it does not once 
occur to you, that, even in the very best of 
these exhibitions, there is any sense of God, 
or that the great master-principle of his au- 
thority is at all concerned in it. Transfer 
this contemplation back again to our spe- 
cies ; and under the same complexional dif- 
ference of the more and the less lovely, or 
the more and the less hateful, you will per- 
ceive the same utter insensibility to the 
consideration of a God, or the same utter 
inefficiency on the part of his law to sub- 
due human habits and human inclinations. 
It is true, that there is one distinction be- 
tween the two cases ; but it all goes to ag- 
gravate the guilt and the ingratitude of 
man. He has an understanding which the 
inferior animals have not — and yet, with 
this understanding, does he refuse practi- 
cally to acknowledge God. He has a con- 
science, which they have not — and yet, 
though it whisper in the ear of his inner 
man the claims of an unseen legislator, 
does he lull away his time in the slumbers 
of indifference, and live without him in the 
world. 

Or go to the people of another planet, 
over whom the hold of allegiance to their 
maker is unbroken — in whose hearts the 
Supreme sits enthroned, and throughout 
the whole of whose history there runs the 



ON THE MERCANTILE VIRTUES WITHOUT CHRISTIANITY 



231 



perpetual and the unfailing habit of subor- 
dination to his law. It is conceivable, that 
with them too, there may be varieties of 
temper and of natural inclination, and yet 
all of them be under the effective control 
of one great and imperious principle ; that 
in subjection to the will of God, every kind 
and every honourable disposition is che- 
rished to the uttermost ; and that in sub- 
jection to the same will, every tendency to 
anger, and malignity, and revenge, is re- 
pressed at the first moment of its threatened 
operation ; and that in this way, there will 
be the fostering of a constant encourage- 
ment given to the one set of instincts, and 
the struggling of a constant opposition 
made against the other. Now, only con- 
ceive this great bond of allegiance to be 
dissolved; the mighty and subordinating 
principle, which wont to wield an ascend- 
ency over every movement and every af- 
fection, to be loosened and done away ; and 
then would this loyal, obedient world, be- 
come what ours is, independent of Chris- 
tianity. Every constitutional desire would 
run out, in the unchecked spontaneity of 
its own movements. The law of heaven 
would furnish no counteraction to the im- 
pulses and tendencies of nature. And tell 
us, in these circumstances, when the re- 
straint of religion was thus lifted off, and all 
the passions let out to take their own tu- 
multuous and independent career — tell us, 
if, though amid the uproar of the licentious 
and vindictive propensities, there did gleam 
forth at times some of the finer and the 
lovelier sympathies of nature — tell us, if 
this would at ail affect the state of that 
world as a state of enmity against God ; 
where his will was reduced to an element 
of utter insignificancy ; where the voice of 
their rightful master fell powerless on the 
consciences of a listless and alienated fa- 
mily; where humour, and interest, and 
propensity — at one time selfish, and at an- 
other social — took their alternate sway over 
those hearts from which there was excluded 
all effectual sense of an overruling God. If he 
be unheeded and disowned by the creatures 
whom he has formed, can it be said to alle- 
viate the deformity of their rebellion, that 
they, at times, experience the impulse of 
some amiable feeling which he hath im- 
planted, or at times hold out some beau- 
teousness of aspect which he hath shed over 
them ? Shall the value of the multitude of 
the gifts release them from their loyalty to 
the giver ; and when nature puts herself 
into the attitude of indifference or hostility 
against him, now is it that the graces and 
the accomplishments of nature can be plead 
in mitigation of her antipathy to him, who 
invested nature with all her graces, and up- 
holds her in the display of all her accom- 
plishments ? 

The way, then, to assert the depravity of 



man, is to fasten on the radical element of 
depravity, and to show how deeply it lies 
incorporated with his moral constitution. 
It is not by an utterance of rash and sweep- 
ing totality to refuse him the possession of 
what is kind in sympathy, or of what is 
dignified in principle — for this Were in the 
face of all observation. It is to charge him 
direct with his utter disloyalty to God. It 
is to convict him of treason against the ma- 
jesty of heaven. It is to press home upon 
him the impiety of not caring about God. 
It is to tell him, that the hourly and habit- 
ual language of his heart is, I will not have 
the Being who made me to rule over me. 
It is to go to the man of honour, and, while 
we frankly award it to him that his pulse 
beats high in the pride of integrity — it is to 
tell him, that he who keeps it in living play, 
and who sustains the loftiness of its move- 
ments, and who, in one moment of time, 
could arrest it for ever, is not in all his 
thoughts. It is to go to the man of soft and 
gentle emotions, and while we gaze in ten- 
derness upon him — it is to read to him, out 
of his own character, how the exquisite 
mechanism of feeling may be in full ope- 
ration, while he who framed it is forgotten ; 
while he who poured into his constitution the 
milk of human kindness, may never be ad- 
verted to with one single sentiment of vene- 
ration, or on one single purpose of obe- 
dience ; while he who gave him his gentler 
nature, who clothed him in all its adorn- 
ments, and in virtue of whose appointment 
it is, that, instead of an odious and a revolt- 
ing monster, he is the much loved child of 
sensibility, may be utterly disowned by 
him. In a word, it is to go around among 
all that Humanity has to offer in the shape 
of fair and amiable, and engaging, and to 
prove how deeply Humanity has revolted 
against that Being who has done so much 
to beautify and to exalt her. It is to prove 
that the carnal mind, under all its varied 
complexions of harshness, or of delicacy, is 
enmity against God. It is to prove that 
let nature be as rich as she may in moral 
accomplishments, and let the most favoured 
of her sons realize upon his own person the 
finest and the fullest assemblage of them — 
should he, at the moment of leaving this 
theatre of display, and bursting loose from 
the framework of mortality, stand in the 
presence of his judge, and have the ques- 
tion put to him, What hast thou done unto 
me? This man of constitutional virtue, with 
all the salutations he got upon earth, and all 
the reverence that he has left behind him, 
may, naked and defenceless, before him 
who sitteth on the throne, be left without a 
plea and without an argument. 

God's controversy with our species, is 
not, that the glow of honour or of human- 
ity is never felt among them. It is, that 
none of them understandeth, and none of 



232 



ON THE MERCANTILE VIRTUES WITHOUT CHRISTIANITY. 



[DISC. 



them seeketh after God. It is, that he is 
deposed from his rightful ascendency. It 
is that he, who in fact inserted in the hu- 
man bosom every one principle that can 
embellish the individual possessor, or main- 
tain the order of society, is banished alto- 
gether from the circle of his habitual con- 
templations. It is, that man taketh his way 
in life as much at random, as if there was 
no presiding Divinity at all; and that, 
whether he at one time grovel in the depths 
of sensuality, or at another kindle with 
some generous movement of sympathy or 
of patriotism, he is at both times alike un- 
mindful of him to whom he owes his con- 
tinuance and his birth. It is, that he moves 
his every footstep at his own will ; and has 
utterly discarded, from its supremacy over 
him, the will of that invisible Master who 
compasses all his goings, and never ceases 
to pursue him by the claims of a resistless 
and legitimate authority. It is this which 
is the essential or the constituting principle 
of rebellion against God. This it is which 
has exiled the planet we live in beyond the 
limits of his favoured creation — and whether 
it be shrouded in the turpitude of licentious- 
ness or cruelty, or occasionally brightened 
with the gleam of the kindly and the honour- 
able virtues, it is thus that it is seen as afar 
off, by Him who sitteth on the throne, and 
looketh on our strayed world, as athwart a 
wide and dreary gulf of separation. 

And when, prompted by love towards his 
alienated children, he devised a way of re- 
calling them — when, willing to pass over 
all the ingratitude he had gotten from their 
hands, he reared a pathway of return, and 
proclaimed a pardon and a welcome to all 
who should walk upon it — when through 
the offered Mediator, who magnified his 
broken law, and upheld, by his mysterious 
sacrifice, the dignity of that government, 
which the children of Adam had disowned, 
he invited all to come and be saved — 
should this message be brought to the door 
of the most honourable man upon earth, 
and he turn in contempt and hostility away 
from it, has not that man posted himself 
more firmly than ever on the ground of re- 
bellion ? Though an unsullied integrity 
should rest upon all his transactions, and 
the homage of confidence and respect be 
awarded to him from every quarter of so- 
ciety, has not this man, by slighting the 
overtures of reconciliation, just plunged 
himself the deeper in the guilt of a wilful 
and determined ungodliness ? Has not the 
creature exalted itself above the Creator ; 
and in the pride of those accomplishments, 
which never would have invested his per- 
son had not they come to him from above, 
has he not, in the act of resisting the gospel, 
aggravated the provocation of his whole 
previous defiance to the author of it ? 

Thus much for all that is amiable, and 



for all that is manly in the accomplish- 
ments of nature, disjoined from the faith of 
Christianity. They take up a separate 
residence in the human character from the 
principle of godliness. Anterior to this re- 
ligion, they go not to alleviate the guilt of 
our departure from the living God; and 
subsequently to this religion, they may 
blazon the character of him who stands out 
against it ; but on the principles of a most 
clear and intelligent equity, they never can 
shield him from the condemnation and the 
curse of those who have neglected the great 
salvation. 

The doctrine of the New Testament will 
bear to be confronted with all that can be 
met or noticed on the face of human society. 
And we speak most confidently to the ex- 
perience of many who now hear us, when 
we say, that often, in the course of their 
manifold transactions, have they met the 
man, whom the bribery of no advantage 
whatever could seduce into the slightest 
deviation from the path of integrity — the 
man, who felt his nature within him put 
into a state of the most painful indignancy, 
at every thing that bore upon it the charac- 
ter of a sneaking or dishonourable artifice — 
the man, who positively could not be at 
rest under the consciousness that he had 
ever betrayed, even to his own heart, the 
remotest symptom of such an inclination— 
and whom, therefore, the unaided law of 
justice and of truth has placed on a high 
and deserved eminence in the walks of 
honourable merchandize. 

Let us not withhold from this character 
the tribute of its most rightful admiration • 
but let us further ask, if, with all that he 
thus possessed of native feeling and consti- 
tutional integrity, you have never observed 
in any such individual an utter emptiness 
of religion ; and that God is not in all his 
thoughts; and that, when he does what 
happens to be at one with the will of the 
Lawgiver, it is not because he is impelled 
to it by a sense of its being the will of the 
Lawgiver, but because he is impelled to it 
by the working of his own instinctive sen- 
sibilities ; and that, however fortunate, or 
however estimable these sensibilities are, 
they still consist with the habit of a mind 
that is in a state of total indifference about 
God ? Have you never read in your own 
character, or observed in the character of 
others, that the claims of the Divinity may 
be entirely forgotten by the very man to 
whom society around him yield, and rightly 
yield, the homage of an unsullied and 
honourable reputation ; that this man may 
have all his foundations in the world ; that 
every security on which he rests, and every 
enjoyment upon which his heart is set, lieth 
on this side of death ; that a sense of the 
coming day on which God is to enter into 
judgment with him, is to every purpose of 



ON THE MERCANTILE VIRTUES WITHOUT CHRISTIANITY. 



233 



poetical ascendency, as good as expunged 
altogether from his bosom ; that he is far 
in desire, and far in enjoyment, and far in 
habitual contemplation, away from that 
God who is not far from any one of us ; 
that his extending credit and his brighten- 
ing prosperity, and his magnificent retreat 
from business, with all the splendour of its 
accommodations — that these are the futuri- 
ties at which he terminates ; and that he 
goes not in thought beyond them to that 
eternity, which in the flight of a few little 
years, will absorb all, and annihilate all 1 
In a word, have you never observed the 
man, who, with all that was right in mer- 
cantile principle, and all that was open and 
unimpeachable in the habit of his mercan- 
tile transactions, lived in a state of utter 
estrangement from the concerns of immor- 
tality ? who, in reference to God, persisted, 
from one year to another, in the spirit of a 
deep slumber ? who, in reference to the 
man that tries to awaken him out of his 
lethargy, recoils, with the most sensitive 
dislike, from the faithfulness of his minis- 
trations? who, in reference to the Book 
which tells him of his nakedness and his 
guilt, never consults it with one practical 
aim, and never tries to penetrate beyond 
that aspect of mysteriousness which it holds 
out to an undiscerning world ? who attends 
not church, or attends it with all the life- 
lessness of a form ? who reads not his Bible, 
or reads it in the discharge of a self-pre- 
scribed and unfruitful task ? who prays not, 
or prays with the mockery of an unmean- 
ing observation? and, in one word, who 
while surrounded by all those testimonies 
which give to man a place of moral dis- 
tinction among his fellows, is living in utter 
carelessness about God, and about all the 
avenues which lead to him ? 

Now, attend for a moment to what that 
is which the man has, and to what that is 
which he has not. He has an attribute of 
character which is in itself pure, and lovely, 
and honourable, and of good report. He 
has a natural principle of integrity ; and 
under its impulse he may be carried for- 
ward to such fine exhibitions of himself, as 
are worthy of all admiration. It is very 
noble, when the simple utterance of his 
word carries as much security along with 
it as if he had accompanied that utterance 
by the signatures, and the securities, and 
the legal obligations which are required of 
other men. It might tempt one to be proud 
of his species when he looks at the faith 
that is put in him by a distant correspon- 
dent, who, without one other hold of him 
than his honour, consigns to him the wealth 
of a whole flotilla, and sleeps in the confi- 
dence that it is safe. It is indeed an animat- 
ing thought, amid the gloom of this world's 
depravity, when we behold the credit which 
one man puts in another, though separated 



by oceans and by continents ; when he fixes 
the anchor of a sure and steady dependence 
on the reported honesty of one whom he 
never saw ; when, with all his fears for the 
treachery of the varied elements, through 
which his property has to pass, he knows, 
that should it only arrive at the door of its 
destined agent, all his fears and all his sus- 
picions may be at an end. We know nothing 
finer than such an act of homage from one 
human being to another, when perhaps the 
diameter of the globe is between them ; nor 
do we think that either the renown of her 
victories, or the wisdom of her councils, so 
signalizes the country in which we live, as 
does the honourable dealing of her mer- 
chants ; that all the glories of British policy, 
and British valour, are far eclipsed by the 
moral splendour Which British faith has 
thrown over the name and the character of 
our nation ; nor has she gathered so proud 
a distinction from all the tributaries of her 
power, as she has done from the awarded 
confidence of those men of all tribes, and 
colours, and languages, who look to our 
agency for the most faithful of all manage- 
ment, and to our keeping for the most un- 
violable of all custody. 

There is no denying, then, the very ex- 
tended prevalence of a principle of integrity 
in the commercial world ; and he who has 
such a principle within him, has that to 
which all the epithets of our text may 
rightly be appropriated. But it is just as 
impossible to deny, that, with this thing 
which he has, there may be another thing 
which he has not. He may not have one 
duteous feeling of reverence which points 
upward to God. He may not have one 
wish, or one anticipation, which points for- 
ward to eternity. He may not have any 
sense of dependence on the Being who sus- 
tains him ; and who gave him his very 
principle of honour, as part of that interior 
furniture which he has put into his bosom ; 
and who surrounded him with the theatre 
on which he has come forward with the 
finest and most illustrious displays of it; 
and who set the whole machinery of his 
sentiment and action agoing ; and can, by 
a single word of his power, bid it cease 
from the variety, and cease from the grace- 
fulness of its movements. In other words, 
he is a man of integrity, and yet he is a 
man of ungodliness. 

He is a man born for the confidence and 
the admiration of his fellows, and yet a man 
whom his Maker can charge with utter de- 
fection from all the principles of a spiritual 
obedience. He is a man whose virtues have 
blazoned his own character in time, and 
have upheld the interests of society, and 
yet a man who has not, by one movement 
of principle, brought himself nearer to the 
kingdom of heaven, than the most profli- 
gate of the species. The condemnation, that 



234 



ON THE MERCANTILE VIRTUES WITHOUT CHRISTIANITY. 



[DISC. 



he is an alien from God, rests upon him in 
all the weight of its unmitigated severity. 
The threat, that they who forget God shall 
be turned into hell, will, on the great day 
of its fell and sweeping operation, involve 
him among the wretched outcasts of eter- 
nity. That God from whom, while in the 
world, he withheld every due offering of 
gratitude, and remembrance, and universal 
subordination of habit and of desire, will 
show him to his face, how, under the delu- 
sive garb of such sympathies as drew upon 
him the love of his acquaintances, and of 
such integrities as drew upon him their re- 
spect and their confidence, he was in fact a 
determined rebel against the authority of 
heaven ; that not one commandment of the 
law, in the true extent of its interpretation, 
was ever fulfilled by him ; that the pervad- 
ing principle of obedience to this law, which 
is love to God, never had its ascendency 
over him ; that the beseeching voice of the 
Lawgiver, so offended and so insulted — but 
who, nevertheless, devised in love a way of 
reconciliation for the guilty, — never had the 
effect of recalling him; that, in fact, he 
neither had a wish for the friendship of 
God, nor cherished the hope of enjoying 
him, and that therefore, as he lived without 
hope, so he lived without God in the world; 
finding all his desire, and all his sufficiency, 
to be somewhere else, than in that favour 
which is better than life, and so, in addition 
to the curse of having continued not in all 
the words of the book of God's law to do 
them, entailing upon himself the mighty 
aggravation of having neglected all the of- 
fers of his gospel. 

We say, then, of this natural virtue, what 
our Saviour said of the virtue of the Phari- 
sees, many of whom were not extortioners, 
as other men — that, verily, it hath its re- 
ward. When disjoined from a sense of God, 
it is of no religious estimation whatever; 
nor will it lead to any religious blessing, 
either in time or in eternity. It has, however, 
its enjoyments annexed to it, just as a fine 
taste has its enjoyments annexed to it ; and 
in these it is abundantly rewarded. It is 
exempted from that painfulness of inward 
feeling which nature has annexed to every 
act of departure from honesty. It is sus- 
tained by a conscious sense of rectitude and 
elevation. It is gratified by the homage of 
society; the members of which are ever 
ready to award the tribute of acknowledg- 
ment to those virtues that support the in- 
terests of society. And finally, it may be 



said, that prosperity, with some occasional 
variations, is the general accompaniment of 
that credit, which every man of undeviat- 
ing justice is sure to draw around him. But 
what reward will you tell us is due to him 
on the great day of the manifestation of 
God's righteousness, when, in fact, he has 
done nothing unto God ? What recompence 
can be awarded to him out of those books 
which are then to be opened, and in which 
he stands recorded as a man overcharged 
with the guilt of spiritual idolatry ? How 
shall God grant unto him the reward of a 
servant, when the service of God was not the 
principle of his doings in the world ; and 
when neither the justice he rendered to 
others, nor the sensibility that he felt for 
them, bore the slightest character of an of- 
fering to his Maker? 

But wherever the religious principle has 
taken possession of the mind, it animates 
these virtues with a new spirit ; and when 
so animated, all such things as are pure, 
and lovely, and just, and true, and honest, 
and of good report, have a religious import- 
ance and character belonging to them. The 
text forms part of an epistle addressed to 
all the saints in Christ Jesus, which were 
at Philippi ; and the lesson of the text is 
matter of direct and authoritative enforce- 
ment on all who are saints in Christ Jesus 
at the present day. Christianity, with the 
weight of its positive sanctions on the side 
of what is amiable and honourable in hu- 
man virtue, causes such an influence to rest 
on the character of its genuine disciples, 
that, on the ground both of inflexible jus- 
tice and ever-breathing charity, they are 
ever sure to leave the vast majority of the 
world behind them. Simplicity and godly 
sincerity form essential ingredients of that 
peculiarity by which they stand signalized 
in the midst of an ungodly generation. The 
true friends of the gospel, tremblingly alive 
to the honour of their master's cause, blush 
for the disgrace that has been brought on it 
by men who keep its sabbaths, and yield an 
ostentatious homage to its doctrines and its 
sacraments. They utterly disclaim all fel- 
lowship with that vile association of cant 
and of duplicity, which has sometimes been 
exemplified, to the triumph of the enemies 
of religion ; and they both feel the solemn 
truth, and act on the authority of the say- 
ing, that neither thieves, nor liars, nor ex- 
tortioners, nor unrighteous persons, have 
any part in the kingdom of Christ and of 
God. 



II.] INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY, &C. 235 

DISCOURSE II. 

The Influence of Christianity in aiding and augmenting the mercantile Virtues, 

* For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God, and approved of men." — Romans xiv. 18. 



We have already asserted the natural ex- 
istence of such principles in the heart of 
man, as lead him to many graceful and to 
many honourable exhibitions of character. 
We have further asserted, that this formed 
no deduction whatever from that article of 
orthodoxy which affirms the utter depravity 
of our nature ; that the essence of this de- 
pravity lies in man having broken loose 
from the authority of God, and delivered 
himself wholly up to the guidance of his 
own inclinations ; that though some of these 
inclinations are in themselves amiable fea- 
tures of human character, and point in their 
effects to what is most useful to human 
society, yet devoid as they all are of any 
reference to the will and to the rightful 
sovereignty of the Supreme Being, they 
could not avert, or even so much as alle- 
viate that charge of ungodliness, which may 
be fully carried round amongst all the sons 
and daughters of the species ; that they fur- 
nish not the materials of any valid or satis- 
factory answer to the question, " WTiat hast 
thou done unto God?" and that whether 
they are the desires of a native rectitude, or 
the desires of an instinctive benevolence, 
they go not to purge away the guilt of hav- 
ing no love, and no care for the Being who 
formed and who sustains them. 

But what is more. If the virtues and ac- 
complishments of nature are at all to be 
admitted into the controversy between God 
and man, instead of forming any abatement 
upon the enormity of our guilt, they stamp 
upon it the reproach of a still deeper and 
more determined ingratitude. Let us con- 
ceive it possible, for a moment, that the 
beautiful personifications of scripture were 
all realized ; that the trees of the forest clap- 
ped their hands unto God, and that the isles 
were glad at his presence ; that the little 
hills shouted on every side, and that the 
vallies covered over with corn sent forth 
their notes of rejoicing ; that the sun and 
the moon praised him, and the stars of light 
joined in the solemn adoration; that the 
voice of glory to God was heard from every 
mountain and from every water-fall; and 
that all nature, animated throughout by the 
consciousness of a pervading and presiding 
Deity, burst into one loud and universal 
song of gratulation. Would not a strain of 
greater loftiness be heard to ascend from 
those regions where the all-working God 
had left the traces of his own immensity, 
than from the tamer and the humbler 



scenery of an ordinary landscape ? Would 
not you look for a gladder acclamation 
from the fertile field, than from the arid 
waste, where no character of grandeur 
made up for the barrenness that was around 
you? Would not the goodly tree, com- 
passed about with the glories of its summer 
foliage, lift up an anthem of louder grati- 
tude than the lowly shrub that grew be- 
neath it? Would "not the flower, from 
whose leaves every hue of loveliness was 
reflected, send forth a sweeter rapture than 
the russet weed, which never drew the eye 
of any admiring passenger? And in a 
word, wherever you saw the towering emi- 
nences of nature, or the garniture of her 
more rich and beauteous adornments, would 
it not be there that you looked for the deep- 
est tones of devotion, or there for the ten- 
derest and most exquisite of its melodies ? 

There is both the sublime of character, 
and the beauteous of character exemplified 
upon man. We have the one in that high 
sense of honour which no interest and no 
terror can seduce from any of its obliga- 
tions. We have the other in that kindli- 
ness of feeling, which one look, or one sigh 
of imploring distress can touch into liveliest 
sympathy. Only grant that we have no- 
thing either in the constitution of our spirits, 
or in the structure of our bodies, which we 
did not receive ; and that mind, with all its 
varieties, is as much the product of a creat- 
ing hand, as matter in all its modifications ; 
and then, on the face of human society, do we 
witness all the gradations of a moral scenery, 
which may be directly referred to the opera- 
tion of him who worketh all in all. It is our 
belief, that, as to any effectual sense of God, 
there is as deep a slumber throughout the 
whole of this world's living and rational 
generations, as there is throughout all the 
diversities of its mute and unconscious ma- 
terialism ; and that to make our alienated 
spirits again alive unto the Father of them, 
calls for as distinct and as miraculous an 
exertion of the Divinity, as would need to 
be put forth in the act of turning stones into 
the children of Abraham. Conceive this to 
be done then — and that a quickening and a 
realizing sense of the Deity pervaded all the 
men of our species — and that each knew 
how to refer his own endowments, with an 
adequate expression of gratitude to the un- 
seen author of them— from whom we ask of 
all these various individuals, would you look 
for the halleluiahs of devoutest ecstacv" 2 



236 



INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY IN 



[DISC. 



Would it not be from him whom God had 
arrayed in the splendour of nature's bright- 
est accomplishments ? Would it not be from 
him, with whose constitutional feelings the 
movements of honour and benevolence were 
in fullest harmony ? Would it not be from 
him whom his Maker had cast into the hap- 
piest mould, and attempered into sweetest 
unison with all that was kind, and generous, 
and lovely, and ennobled by the loftiest emo- 
tions, and raised above his fellows into the 
finest spectacle of all that was graceful and 
all that was manly ? Surely, if the posses- 
sion of these moralities be just another 
theme of acknowledgment to the Lord of 
the spirits of all flesh, then, if the acknow- 
ledgment be withheld, and these moralities 
have taken up their residence in the bosom 
of him who is utterly devoid of piety, they 
go to aggravate the reproach of his ingrati- 
tude ; and to prove, that of all the men upon 
earth who are far from God, he stands at 
the widest distance, he remains proof against 
the weightiest claims, and he, of the dead 
in trespasses and sins, is the most profoundly 
asleep to the call of religion, and to the su- 
premacy of its righteous obligations. 

It is by argument such as this, that we 
would attempt to convince of sin, those 
who have a righteousness that is without 
godliness ; and to prove, that, with the pos- 
session of such things as are pure, and 
lovely, and honest, and of good report, they 
in fact can only be admitted to reconcilia- 
tion with God, on the same footing with 
the most worthless and profligate of the 
species ; and to demonstrate, that they are 
in the very same state of need and of naked- 
ness, and are therefore children of wrath, 
even as others ; that it is only through faith 
in the preaching of the gospel of our Lord 
Jesus Christ that they can be saved ; and 
that unless brought down from the delusive 
eminency of their own conscious attain- 
ments, they take their forgiveness through 
the blood of the Redeemer, and their sanc- 
tification through the spirit which is at his 
giving, they shall obtain no part in that in- 
heritance which is incorruptible and unde- 
filed, and which fadeth not away. 

But the gospel of Jesus Christ does some- 
thing more than hold out a refuge to the 
guilty. It takes all those who accept of its 
overtures under its supreme and exclusive 
direction. It keeps by them in the way of 
counsel and exhortation, and constant su- 
perintendence. The grace which it reveals, 
is a grace which not merely saves all men, 
but which teaches all men. He who is the 
proposed Saviour, also claims to be the 
alone master of those who put their trust 
in him. His cognizance extends itself over 
the whole line of their history ; and there is 
not an affection of their heart, or a deed 
of their visible conduct, over which he does 
not assert the right of an authority that is 



above all control, and that refuses all rival 

ship. 

Now, we want to point your attention to 
a distinction which obtains between one set 
and another set of his requirements. By 
the former, we are enjoined to practise cer- 
tain virtues, which separately from his in- 
junction altogether, are in great demand, and 
in great reverence, amongst the members of 
society— such as compassion, and generosity, 
and justice, and truth} which, independently 
of the religious sanction they obtain from 
the law of the Saviour, are in themselves so 
lovely, and so honourable, and of such good 
report, that they are ever sure to carry 
general applause along with them, and thus 
to combine both the characteristics of our 
text — that he Who in these things serveth 
Christ, is both acceptable to God, and ap- 
proved of men. 

But there is another set of requirements, 
where the will of God, instead of being 
seconded by the applause of men, is utterly 
at variance with it. There are some who 
can admire the generous sacrifices that are 
made to truth or to friendship, but who, 
without one opposing scruple, abandon 
themselves to all the excesses of riot and 
festivity, and are therefore the last to admire 
the puritanic sobriety of him whom they 
cannot tempt to put his chastity or his tem- 
perance away from him ; though the same 
God, who bids us lie not one to another, 
also bids us* keep the body under subjec- 
tion, and to abstain from fleshly lusts which 
war against the soul. Again, there are 
some in whose eye an unvitiated delicacy 
looks a beautiful and an interesting specta- 
cle, and an undeviating self-control looks a 
manly and respectable accomplishment; 
but who have no taste in themselves, and 
no admiration in others, for the more direct 
exercises of religion; and who positively 
hate the strict and unbending preciseness 
of those who join in every ordinance, and 
on every returning night celebrate the 
praises of God in their family ; and that, 
though the heavenly Lawgiver, who tells 
us to live righteously and soberly, tells us 
also to live godly in the present evil world. 
And lastly, there are some who have not 
merely a toleration, but a liking for all the 
decencies of an established observation; 
but who, with the homage they pay to 
sabbaths and to sacraments, nauseate the 
Chiistian principle in the supreme and re- 
generating vitality of its influences ; who, 
under a general religiousness of aspect, are 
still in fact the children of the world— and 
therefore hate the children of light in all 
that is peculiar and essentially characteris- 
tic of that high designation ; who under- 
stand not what is meant by having our con- 
versation in heaven ; and utter strangers to 
the separated walk, and the spiritual exer- 
cises, and the humble devotedness, and the 



II.J 



AUGMENTING THE MARCANTILE VIRTUES. 



237 



consecrated affections, of the new creature 
m Jesus Christ, shrink from them alto- 
gether as from the extravagancies of a fa- 
naticism in which they have no share, and 
with which they can have no sympathy — 
and all this, though the same scripture 
which prescribes the exercises of household 
and of public religion, lays claim to an 
undivided authority over all the desires and 
affections of the soul ; and will admit of no 
compromise between God and the world ; 
and insist upon an utter deadness to the 
one, and a most vehement sensibility to the 
other ; and elevates the standard of loyalty 
to the Father of our Spirits, to the lofty 
pitch of loving him with all our strength, 
and of doing all things to his glory. 

Let these examples serve to impress a 
real and experimental distinction which 
obtains between two sets of virtues ; be- 
tween those which possess the single ingre- 
dient of being approved by God, while they 
want the ingredient of being also accepta- 
ble unto men — and those which possess 
both these ingredients, and to the observ- 
ance of which, therefore, we may be carried 
by a regard to the will of God, without any 
reference to the opinion of men — or by a 
regard to the opinion of men, without any 
reference to the will of God. Among the 
first class of virtues we would assign a 
foremost place to all those inward and 
spiritual graces which enter into the obe- 
dience of the affections — highly approved 
of God, but not at all acceptable to the gene- 
ral taste, or carrying along with them the 
general congeniality of the world. And 
then, though they do not possess the ingre- 
dient of God's approbation in a way so 
separate and unmixed, we would say that 
abstinence from profane language, and at- 
tendance upon church, and a strict keeping 
of the sabbath, and the exercises of family 
worship, and the more rigid decrees of so- 
briety, and a fearful avoidance of every en- 
croachment on temperance or chastity, 
rank more appropriately with the first than 
with the second class of virtues ; for though 
there be many in society who have no re- 
ligion, and yet to whom several of these 
virtues are acceptable, yet you will allow, 
that they do not convey such a universal 
popularity along with them, as certain other 
virtues which belong indisputably to the 
second class. These are the virtues which 
have a more obvious and immediate bearing - 
on the interest of society — such as the truth : 
which is punctual to all its engagements, i 
and the honour which never disappoints the 
confidence it has inspired, and the compas- : 
sion which cannot look unmoved at any of i 
the symptoms of human wretchedness, and 1 
the generosity which scatters unsparingly i 
around it. These are virtues which God i 
has enjoined, and in behalf of which man ] 
Hits the testimony of a loud and ready ad- 1 



; miration — virtues in which there is a meet- 

■ ing and a combining of both the properties 
• of our text; so that he who in these things 
. serveth Christ, is both approved of God, 

■ and acceptable unto men. 
i Let a steady hold be kept of this distinc- 
tion, and it will be found capable of being 
turned to very useful application, both to 
the object of illustrating principle, and to 
the important object of detecting character. 
For this purpose, let us carry the distinc- 
tion along with us, and make it subservient 
to the establishment of two or three succes- 
sive observations. 

First. A man may possess, to a consider- 
able extent, the second class of virtues, and 
not possess so much as one iota of the reli- 
gious principle ; and that among other rea- 
sons, because a man may feel a value' for 
one of the attributes which belongs to this 
class of virtues, and have no value what- 
ever for the other attribute. If justice be 
both approved by God, and acceptable to 
men, he may on the latter property alone, 
be induced to the strictest maintenance of 
this virtue — and that without suffering its 
former property to have any practical in- 
fluence whatever on any of his habits, or 
any of his determinations, and the same 
with every other virtue belonging to this 
second class. As residing in his character, 
there may not be the ingredient of godli- 
ness in any one of them. He may be well 
reported on account of them by men ; but 
with God he may lie under as fearful a 
severity of reckoning, as if he wanted them 
altogether. Surely, it does not go to alle- 
viate the withdrawment of your homage 
from God, that you have such an homage 
to the opinion of men, as influences you to 
do things, to the doing of which the law of 
God is not able to. influence you. It cannot 
be said to palliate the revolting of your in- 
clinations from the Creator, that you have 
transferred them all to the creature; and 
given an ascendency to the voice of human 
reputation, which you have refused to the 
voice and authority of your Lawgiver in 
heaven. Your want of subordination to 
him, is surely not made up by the respectful 
subordination that you render to the taste 
or the judgment of society. And in addi- 
tion to this, we would have you to remem- 
ber, that though other constitutional prin- 
ciples, besides a regard to the opinion of 
others, helped to form the virtues of the 
second class upon your character ; though 
compassion and generosity, and truth, 
would have broken out into full and flou- 
rishing display upon you, and that, just be- 
cause you had a native sensibility, or a na- 
tive love of rectitude ; yet, if the first 
ingredient be wanting, if a regard to the 
approbation of God have no share in the 
production of the moral accomplishment — 
then all the morality you can pretend to, is 



238 



INFLUENCE OF 



CHRISTIANITY 



[DISC. 



ot as little religious estimation, and is as 
utterly disconnected with the rewards of 
religion, as all the elegance of taste you can 
pretend to, or all the raptured love of music 
you can pretend to, or all the vigour and 
dexterity of bodily exercise you can pre- 
tend to. All these, in reference to the great 
question of immortality, profit but little; 
and it is godliness alone that is profitable 
unto all things. It is upon this considera- 
tion that we would have you to open your 
eyes to the nakedness of your condition in 
the sight of God ; to look to the full weight 
of the charge that he may prefer against 
you ; to estimate the fearful extent of the 
deficiency under which you labour ; to re- 
sist the delusive whispering of peace, when 
there is no peace ; and to understand, that 
the wrath of God abideth on every child of 
nature, however rich he may be in the vir- 
tues and accomplishments of nature. 

But again. This view of the distinction 
between the two sets of virtues, will serve 
to explain how it is, that, in the act of turn- 
ing unto God, the one class of them appears 
to gather more copiously, and more con- 
spicuously, upon the front of a renewed 
character, than the other class ; how it is 
that the former wear a more unequivocal 
aspect of religiousness than the latter ; how 
it is, that an air of gravity, and decency, 
and seriousness, looks to be more in alliance 
with sanctity, than the air either of open 
integrity, or of smiling benevolence ; how 
it is, that the most ostensible change in the 
habit of a converted profligate, is that 
change in virtue of which he withdraws 
himself from the companions of his licen- 
tiousness : and that to renounce the dissi- 
pations of his former life stands far more 
frequently, or, at least, far more visibly, as- 
sociated with the act of putting on Chris- 
tianity, than to renounce the dishonesties of 
his former life. It is true, that, by the law of 
the gospel he is laid as strictly under the 
authority of the commandment to live righ- 
teously, as of the commandment to live 
soberly. But there is a compound cha- 
racter in those virtues which are merely 
social ; and the presence of the one ingre- 
dient serves to throw into the shade, or to 
disguise altogether, the presence of the other 
ingredient. There is a greater number of 
'irreligious men, who are at the same time 
just in their dealings, than there is of irre- 
ligious men, who are at the same time pure 
and temperate in their habits; and there- 
fore it is that justice, even the most scrupu- 
lous, is not so specifical, and of course not 
so satisfying a mark of religion, as is a so- 
briety that is rigid and unviolable. And 
all this helps to explain how it is, that when 
a man comes under the power of religion, 
to abandon the levities of his past conduct 
is an event which stands far more notice- 
ably out upon him, at this stage of his his- 



tory, than to abandon the iniquities of his 
past conduct ; that the most characteristic 
transformation which takes place at such a 
time, is a transformation from thoughtless- 
ness, and from licentious gaiety, and from 
the festive indigencies of those with whom 
he is wont to run to all those excesses of 
riot, of which the Apostle says, that they 
which do these things shall not inherit the 
kingdom of God ; for even then, and in the 
very midst of all his impiety, he may have 
been kindhearted, and there might be no 
room upon his person for a visible trans- 
formation from inhumanity of character ; 
even then, he may have been honourable, 
and there might be as little room for a 
visible transformation from fraudulency of 
character. 

Thirdly. Nothing is more obvious than 
the antipathy that is felt by a certain class 
of religionists against the preaching of good 
works ; and the antipathy is assuredly well 
and warrantably grounded, when it is such 
a preaching as goes to reduce the import- 
ance, or to infringe upon the simplicity, of 
the great doctrine of justification by faith, 
but along with this, may there not be re- 
marked the toleration with which they will 
listen to a discourse upon one set of good 
works, and the evident coldness and dis- 
like with which they listen to a discourse on 
another set of them ; how a pointed remon- 
strance against Sabbath breaking sounds in 
their ears as if more in character from the 
pulpit, than a pointed remonstrance against 
the commission of theft, or the speaking of 
evil ; how an eulogium on the observance 
of family worship, feels, in their taste, to be 
more impregnated with the spirit of sacred- 
ness, than an eulogium on the virtues of 
the shop, or of the market-place ; and that 
while the one is approved of as having 
about it the solemn and the suitable cha- 
racteristics of godliness, the other is stig- 
matized as a piece of barren, heartless, hea- 
thenish, and philosophic morality? Now, 
this antipathy to the preaching of the latter 
species of good works, has something pe- 
culiar in it. It is not enough to say, that 
it arises from a sensitive alarm about the 
stability of the doctrine of justification ; for 
let it be observed, that this doctrine stands 
opposed to the merit not of one particular 
class of performances, but to the merit of 
all performances whatsoever. It is just as 
unscriptural a detraction from the great 
truth of salvation by faith, to rest our ac- 
ceptance with God on the duties of prayer, 
or of rigid Sabbath keeping, or of strict and 
untainted sobriety, as to rest it on the punc- 
tual fulfilment of all your bargains, and on 
the extent of your manifold liberalities. It 
is not, then, a mere zeal about the great 
article of justification which lies at the bot- 
tom of that peculiar aversion that is felt 
towards a sermon on some social or hu- 



II.] 



IN AUGMENTING THE 



MERCANTILE VIRTUES. 



239 



mane accomplishment ; and that is not felt 
towards a sermon on sobermindedness, or 
a sermon on the observation of the sacra- 
ment, or a sermon on any of those perform- 
ances which bear a more direct and exclu- 
sive reference to God. We shall find the 
explanation of this phenomenon, which 
often presents itself in the religious world, 
in that distinction of which we have just 
required that it should be kept in steady 
hold, and followed into its various applica- 
tions. The aversion in question is often, in 
fact, a well founded aversion, to a topic, 
which, though religious in the matter of it, 
may, from the way in which it is proposed, 
be altogether secular in the principle of it. 
It is resistance to what is deemed, and justly 
deemed, an act of usurpation on the part 
of certain virtues, which, when unanimated 
by a sentiment of godliness, are entitled to 
no place whatever in the ministrations of 
the gospel of Christ. It proceeds from a 
most enlightened fear, lest that should be 
held to make up the whole of religion, 
which is in fact utterly devoid of the spirit 
of religion ; and from a true and tender ap- 
prehension, lest, on the possession of cer- 
tain accomplishments, which secure a fleet- 
ing credit throughout the little hour of this 
world's history, deluded man should look 
forward to his eternity with hope, and up- 
ward to his God with complacency, while 
he carries not on his forehead one vestige 
of the character of heaven, one lineament 
of the aspect of godliness. 

And lastly. The first class of virtues 
bear the character of religiousness more 
strongly, just because they bear that cha- 
racter more singly. The people who are 
without, might, no doubt, see in every real 
Christian the virtues of the second class 
also; but these virtues do not belong to 
them peculiarly and exclusively. For though 
it be true, that every religious man must be 
honest, the converse does not follow, that 
every honest man must be religious. And 
it is because the social accomplishments do 
not form the specific, that neither do they 
form the most prominent and distinguish- 
ing marks of Christianity. They may also 
be recognized as features in the character 
of men, who utterly repudiate the whole 
style and doctrine of the New Testament ; 
and hence a very prevalent impression in 
society, that the faith of the gospel does not 
bear so powerfully and so directly on the 
relative virtues of human conduct. A few 
instances of hypocrisy amongst the more se- 
rious professors of our faith, serve to rivet 
the impression, and to give it perpetuity in 
the world. One single example, indeed, of 
sanctimonious duplicity will suffice, in the 
judgment of many, to cover the whole of 
vital and orthodox Christianity with dis- 
grace. The report of it will be borne in 
triumph amongst the companies of the ir- 



religious. The man who pays no homage 
to sabbaths or to sacraments, will be con- 
trasted in the open, liberal, and manly style 
of all his transactions, with the low cun- 
ning of this drivelling methodistical pre- 
tender ; and the loud laugh oj" a multitude 
of scorners, will give a force and a swell to 
this public outcry against the whole cha- 
racter of the sainthood. 

Now, this delusion on the part of the un- 
believing world is very natural, and ought 
not to excite our astonishment. We are 
not surprized, from the reasons already ad- 
verted to, that the truth, and the justice, and 
the humanity, and the moral loveliness, 
which do in fact belong to every new crea- 
ture in Jesus Christ our Lord, should miss 
their observation ; or, at least, fail to be re- 
cognized among the other more obvious 
characteristics into which believers have 
been translated by the faith of the gospel. 
But, on this very subject there is a tendency 
to delusion on the part of the disciples of 
the faith. They need to be reminded of 
the solemn and indispensable religiousness 
of the second class of virtues. They need 
to be told, that though these virtues do pos- 
sess the one ingredient of being approved 
by men, and may, on this single account, 
be found to reside in the characters of those 
who live without God — yet, that they also 
possess the other ingredient of being ac- 
ceptable unto God ; and, on this latter ac- 
count, should be made the subjects of their 
most strenuous cultivation. They must not 
lose sight of the one ingredient in the other ; 
or stigmatize, as so many fruitless and in- 
significant moralities, those virtues which 
enter as component parts, into the service 
of Christ ; so that he who in these things 
serveth Christ, is both acceptable to God, 
and approved by men. They must not 
expend all their warmth on the high and 
peculiar doctrine of the New Testament, 
while they offer a cold and reluctant ad- 
mission to the practical duties of the New 
Testament. The Apostle has bound the 
one to the other by a tie of immediate con- 
nexion. Wherefore, lie not one to another, as 
ye have put off the old man and his deeds> 
and put on the new man, which is formed 
after the image of God, in righteousness 
and true holiness. Here the very obvious 
and popular accomplishment of truth is 
grafted on the very peculiar doctrine of re- 
generation : and you altogether mistake the 
kind of transforming influence which the 
faith of the gospel brings along with it, if 
you think that uprightness of character does 
not emerge at the same time with godliness 
of character ; or that the virtues of society 
do not form upon the believer into as rich 
and varied an assemblage, as do the virtues 
of the sanctuary ; or that, while he puts on 
those graces which are singly acceptable to 
God, he falls behind in any of those graces 



240 



INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY, &C. 



which are both acceptable to God, and ap- 
proved of men. 

Let, therefore, every pretender to Chris- 
tianity vindicate this assertion by his own 
personal history in the world . Let him not 
lay his godliness aside, when he is done 
with the morning devotion of his family ; 
but carry it abroad with him, and make it 
his companion and his guide through the 
whole business of the day ; always bearing 
in his heart the sentiment, that thou God 
seest me ; and remembering, that there is not 
one hour that can flow, or one occasion 
that can cast up, where his law is not pre- 
sent with some imperious exaction or other. 
It is false, that the principle of christian 
sanctification possesses no influence over 
the familiarities of civil and ordinary life. 
It is altogether false, that godliness is a vir- 
tue of such a lofty and monastic order, as 
to hold its dominion only over the solemni- 
ties of worship, or over the solitudes of 
prayer and spiritual contemplation. If it 
be substantially a grace within us at all, it 
will give a direction and a colour to the 
whole of our path in society. There is not 
one conceivable transaction, amongst all the 
manifold varieties of human employment, 
which it is not fitted to animate by its spirit. 
There is nothing that meets us too homely 
to be beyond the reach of obtaining, from 
its influence, the stamp of something celes- 
tial. It offers to take the whole man under 
its ascendency, and to subordinate all his 
movements; nor does it hold the place 
which rightfully belongs to it, till it be 
vested with a presiding authority over the 
entire system of human affairs. And there- 
fore it is, that the preacher is not bringing 
down Christianity — he is only sending it 
abroad over the field of its legitimate ope- 
ration, when he goes with it to your count- 
ing-houses, and there rebukes every selfish 
inclination that would carry you ever so 
little within the limits of fraudulency ; when 
he enters into your chambers of agency, 
and there detects the character of falsehood, 
which lurks under all the plausibility of 
your multiplied and excessive charges ; 
when he repairs to the crowded market- 
place, and pronounces of every bargain, 
over which truth, in all the strictness of 
quakerism, has not presided, that it is tainted 
with moral evil ; when he looks into your 
shops, and, in listening to the contest of 
argument between him who magnifies his 
article, and him who pretends to undervalue 
it, he calls it the contest of avarice, broken 
loose from the restraints of integrity. He 
is not, by all this, vulgarizing religion, or 
giving it the hue and the character of earth- 
liness. He is only asserting the might and 
the universality of its sole preeminence over 
man. And therefore it is, that if possible 
to solemnize his hearers to the practice of 
simplicity and godly sincerity in their deal- 



ings, he would try to make the odiousness 
of sin stand visibly out on every shade and 
modification of dishonesty ; and to assure 
them that if there be a place in our world, 
where the subtle evasion, and the dexterous 
imposition, and the sly but gainful conceal- 
ment, and the report which misleads an 
inquirer, and the gloss which tempts the 
unwary purchaser— are not only currently 
practised in the walks of merchandize, but, 
when not carried forward to the glare and 
the literality of falsehood, are beheld with 
general connivance; if there be a place 
where the sense of morality has thus fallen, 
and all the nicer delicacies of conscience 
are overborne in the keen and ambitious 
rivalry of men hasting to be rich, and 
wholly given over to the idolatrous service 
of the god of this world — then that is the 
place, the smoke of whose iniquity rises be- 
fore Him who sitteth on the throne, in a 
tide of the deepest and most revolting abo- 
mination. 

And here we have to complain of the 
public injustice that is done to Christianity, 
when one of its ostentatious professors has 
acted the hypocrite, and stands in disgrace- 
ful exposure before the eyes of the world. 
We advert to the readiness with which this 
is turned into a matter of general impeach- 
ment, against every appearance of serious- 
ness ; and ho w loud the exclamation is against 
the religion of all who signalize them- 
selves ; and that, if the aspect of godliness 
be so very decided as to become an aspect 
of peculiarity, then is this peculiarity con- 
verted into a ground of distrust and suspi- 
cion against the bearer of it. Now, it so 
happens, that in the midst of this world 
lying in wickedness, a man, to be a Chris- 
tian at all, must signalize himself. Neither 
is he in a way of salvation, unless he be 
one of a very peculiar people ; nor would 
we precipitately consign him to discredit, 
even though the peculiarity be so very 
glaring as to provoke the charge of me- 
thodism. But instead of making one man's 
hypocrisy act as a draw-back upon the 
reputation of a thousand, we submit, if it 
would not be a fairer and more philosophi- 
cal procedure, just to betake one's-self to 
the method of induction — to make a walk- 
ing survey over the town, and record an 
inventory of all the men in it who are so 
very far gone as to have the voice of psalms 
in their family ; or as to attend the meet- 
ings of fellowship for prayer ; or as scru- 
pulously to abstain from all that is ques- 
tionable in the amusements of the world ; 
or as, by any other marked and visible 
symptom whatever, to stand out to general 
observation as the members of a saintly 
and separated society. We know, that even 
of such there are a few, who, if Paul were 
alive, would move him to weep for the re- 
proach they bring upon his master. But 



III.] 



INFLUENCE OF SELFISHNESS ON MERCANTILE INTERCOURSE. 



241 



we also know, that the blind and impe- 
tuous world exaggerates the few into the 
many; inverts the process of atonement 
altogether, by laying the sins of one man 
upon the multitude ; looks at their general 
aspect of sanctity, and is so engrossed with 
this single expression of character, as to be 
insensible to the noble uprightness, and the 
tender humanity with which this sanctity 
is associated. And therefore it is, that we 
offer the assertion, and challenge all to its 
most thorough and searching investigation, 
that the Christianity of these people, which 
many think does nothing but cant, and 
profess, and run after ordinances, has aug- 
mented their honesties and their liberalities, 
and that, tenfold beyond the average cha- 
racter of society; that these are the men 
we oftenest meet with in the mansions of 



poverty— and who look with the most 
wakeful eye over all the sufferings and ne- 
cessities of our species — and who open 
their hand most widely in behalf of the 
imploring and the friendless— and to whom, 
in spite of all their mockery, the men of 
the world are sure, in the negociations of 
business, to award the readiest confidence 
— and who sustain the most splendid part in 
all those great movements of philanthropy 
which bear on the general interests of man- 
kind — and who, with their eye full upon 
eternity, scatter the most abundant blessings 
over the fleeting pilgrimage of time — and 
who, while they hold their conversation in 
heaven, do most enrich the earth we tread 
upon, with all those virtues which secure en- 
joyment to families, and uphold the order 
and prosperity of the commonwealth. 



DISCOURSE III. 



The Power of Selfishness in promoting the Honesties of mercantile Intercourse. 

" And if you do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye ? for sinners also do even the 

same." — Luke vi. 33. 



It is to be remarked of many of those 
duties, the performance of which confers 
the least distinction upon an individual, 
that they are at the same time the very 
duties, the violation of which would con- 
fer upon him the largest measure of oblo- 
quy and disgrace. Truth and justice do 
not serve to elevate a man so highly above 
the average morality of his species, as 
would generosity, or ardent friendship, or 
devoted and disinterested patriotism; the 
former are greatly more common than the 
latter ; and, on that account, the presence 
of them is not so calculated to signalize the 
individual to whom they belong. But that 
is one account, also, why the absence of 
them would make him a more monstrous 
exception to the general run of character 
in society. And, accordingly, while it is 
true, that there are more men of integrity 
in the world, than there are men of very 
wide and liberal beneficence — it is also true, 
that one, act of falsehood, or one act of dis- 
honesty, would stamp a far more burning 
infamy on the name of a transgressor than 
any defect in those more heroic charities, 
and extraordinary virtues, of which hu- 
manity is capable. 

So it is far more disgraceful not to be 
just to another, than not to be kind to him ; 
and, at the same time, an act of kindness 
may be held in higher positive estimation 
than an act of justice. The one is my right 
— nor is there any call for the homage of a 
2 H 



particular testimony when it is rendered. 
The other is additional to my right — the 
offering of a spontaneous good will which 
I had no title to exact ; and which, there- 
fore, when rendered to me, excites in my 
bosom the cordiality of a warmer acknow- 
ledgement. And yet, our Saviour, who 
knew what was in man, saw, that much 
of the apparent kindness of nature, was re- 
solvable into the real selfishness of nature ; 
that much of the good done unto others, 
was done in the hope that these others 
would do something again. And, we be- 
lieve it would be found by an able analyst 
of the human character, that this was the 
secret but substantial principle of many of 
the civilities and hospitalities of ordinary 
intercourse — that if there were no expecta- 
tion either of a return in kind, or of a re- 
turn in gratitude, or of a return in popu- 
larity, many of the sweetening and cement - 
ing virtues of a neighbourhood would be 
practically done away — all serving to prove, 
that a multitude of virtues, which, in effect, 
promoted the comfort and the interest of 
others, were tainted in principle by a latent 
regard to one's own interest ; and that thus 
being the fellowship of those who did good, 
either as a return for the good done unto 
them, or who did good in hope of such a 
return, it might be, in fact, what our Sa- 
viour characterizes in the text — the fellow- 
ship of sinners. 

But if to do that which is unjust, is still 



INFLUENCE OF SELFISHNESS ON MERCANTILE INTERCOURSE, [i)ISC, 



more disgraceful than not to do that which 
is kind, it would prove more strikingly than 
before, how deeply sin had tainted the 
moral constitution of our species — could it 
be shown, that the great practical restraint 
on the prevalence of this more disgraceful 
thing in society, is the tie of that common 
selfishness which actuates and characterizes 
all its members. It were a curious but im- 
portant question, were it capable of being re- 
solved — if men did not feel it their interest 
to be honest, how much of the actual doings 
of honesty would still be kept up in the 
world ? It is our own opinion of the nature 
of man, that it has its honourable feelings, 
and its instinctive principles of rectitude, 
and its constitutional love of truth and of 
integrity ; and that, on the basis of these, a 
certain portion of uprightness would re- 
main amongst us, without the aid of any 
prudence, or any calculation whatever. All 
this we have fully conceded ; and have al- 
ready attempted to demonstrate, that, in 
spite of it, the character of man is tho- 
roughly pervaded by the very essence of 
sinfulness • because, with all the native vir- 
tues which adorn it, there adheres to it that 
foulest of all spiritual deformities — uncon- 
cern about God, and even antipathy to God. 
It has been argued against the orthodox 
doctrine of the universality of human cor- 
ruption, that, even without the sphere of the 
operation of the gospel, there do occur so 
many engaging specimens of worth and be- 
nevolence in society. The reply is, that 
this may be no deduction from the doctrine 
whatever, but be even an aggravation of it 
— should the very men who exemplify so 
much of what is amiable, carry in their 
hearts an indifference to the will of that 
Being who thus hath formed, and thus hath 
embellished them. But it would be a heavy 
deduction indeed, not from the doctrine, 
but from its hostile and opposing argument, 
could it be shown, that the vast majority of 
all equitable dealing amongst men, is per- 
formed, not on the principle of honour at 
all, but on the principle of selfishness — that 
this is the soil upon which the honesty of 
the world mainly flourishes, and is sus- 
tained ; that, were the connexion dissolved 
between justice to others and our own par- 
ticular advantage, this would go very far to 
banish the observation of justice from the 
earth; that, generally speaking, men are 
honest, not because they are lovers of God, 
and not even because they are lovers of vir- 
tue, but because they are lovers of their 
ownselves — insomuch, that if it were pos- 
sible to disjoin the good of self altogether 
from the habit of doing what was fair, as 
well as from the habit of doing what was 
kind to the people around us, this would 
not merely isolate the children of men 
from each other, in respect of the obliga- 
tions of beneficence, but it would arm them 



into an undisguised hostility against each 
other, in respect to their rights. The mere 
disinterested principle would set up a feeble 
barrier, indeed, against a desolating tide of 
selfishness, now set loose from the consi- 
deration of its own advantage. The genu- 
ine depravity of the human heart would 
burst forth and show itself in its true cha- 
racters ; and the world in which we live be 
transformed into a scene of unblushing 
fraud, of open and lawless depredation. 

And, perhaps, after all, the best way of 
arriving practically at the solution of this 
question would be, not by a formal induc- 
tion of particular cases, but by committing 
the matter to the gross and general expe- 
rience of those who are most conversant in 
the affairs of business. — There is a sort of 
undefinable impression you all have upon 
this subject, on the justness of which how- 
ever, we are disposed to lay a very consi- 
derable stress — an impression gathered out 
of the mass of the recollections of a whole 
life — an impression founded on what you 
may have observed in the history of your 
own doings — a kind of tact that you have 
acquired as the fruit of your repeated in- 
tercourse with men, and of the manifold 
transactions that you have had with them, 
and of the number of times in which you 
have been personally implicated with the 
play of human passions, and human in- 
terests. It is our own conviction, that a 
well exercised merchant could cast a more 
intelligent glance at this question, than a 
well exercised metaphysician; and there- 
fore do we submit its decision to those of 
you who have hazarded most largely, and 
most frequently, on the faith of agents, and 
customers, and distant correspondents. We 
know the fact of a very secure and well 
warranted confidence in the honesty of 
others, being widely prevalent amongst 
you : and that, were it not for this, all the 
interchanges of trade would be suspended ; 
and that confidence is the very soul and life 
of commercial activity ; and it is delightful 
to think, how thus a man can suffer all the 
wealth which belongs to him to depart from 
under his eye, and to traverse the mightiest 
oceans and continents of our world, and to 
pass into the custody of men whom he 
never saw. And it is a sublime homage, 
one should think, to the honourable and 
high-minded principles of our nature, that, 
under their guardianship, the adverse hemi- 
spheres of the globe should be bound to- 
gether in safe and profitable merchandise; 
and that thus one should sleep with a bo- 
som undisturbed by jealousy, in Britain 
who has all, and more than all his property 
treasured in the warehouses of India — and 
that, just because there he knows there is 
vigilance to defend it, and activity to dis- 
pose of it, and truth to account for it, and 
all those trusty virtues which ennoble the 



III.] INFLUENCE OF SELFISHNESS ON MERCANTILE INTERCOURSE. 



243 



character of man to shield it from injury, 
and send it back again in an increasing tide 
of opulence to his door. 

There is no question, then, as to the fact 
of a very extended practical honesty, be- 
tween man and man, in their intercourse 
with each other. The only question is, as 
to the reason of the fact. Why is it, that 
he whom you have trusted acquits himself 
of his trust with such correctness and fidel- 
ity ? Whether is his mind in so doing, most 
set upon your interest or upon his own ? 
W T hether is it because he seeks your ad- 
vantage in it, or because he finds it is his 
own advantage ? Tell us to which of the 
two concerns he is most tremblingly alive — 
to your property, or to his own character? 
and whether, upon the last of these feelings, 
he may not be more forcibly impelled to 
equitable dealing than upon the first of 
them? We well know, that there is room 
enough in his bosom for both ; but to de- 
termine how powerfully selfishness is blen- 
ded with the punctualities and the integrities 
of business, let us ask those who can speak 
most soundly and experimentally on the 
subject, what would be the result, if the ele- 
ment of selfishness were so detached from 
the operations of trade, that there was no 
such thing as a man suffering in his pros- 
perity, because he suffered in his good 
name : that there was no such thing as a 
desertion of custom and employment com- 
ing upon the back of a blasted credit, and a 
tainted reputation; in a word, if the only 
security we had of man was his principles, 
and that his interest flourished and aug- 
mented just as surely without his princi- 
ples as with them? Tell us, if the hold we 
have of a man's own personal advantage 
were thus broken down, in how far the vir- 
tues of the mercantile world would survive 
it? Would not the world of trade sustain 
as violent a derangement on this mighty 
hold being cut asunder, as the world of na- 
ture would on the suspending of the law of 
gravitation? Would not the whole system, 
in fact, fall to pieces, and be dissolved? 
Would not men, when thus released from 
the magical chain of their own interest, 
which bound them together into a fair and 
seeming compact of principle, like dogs of 
rapine let loose upon their prey, overleap 
the barrier which formerly restrained them? 
Does not this prove, that selfishness, after 
all, is the grand principle on which the 
brotherhood of the human race is made to 
hang together ; and that he who can make 
the wrath of man to praise him, has also, 
upon the selfishness of man, caused a most 
beauteous order of wide and useful inter- 
course to be suspended ? 

But let us here stop to observe, that, while 
there is much in this contemplation to mag- 
nify the wisdom of the Supreme Contriver, 
there is also much in it to humble man, and 



to convict him of the deceitfulness of that 
moral complacency with which he looks to 
his own character, and his own attainments. 
There is much in it to demonstrate, that 
his righteousness are as filthy rags ; and that 
the idolatry of self, however hidden in its 
operation, may be detected in almost every 
one of them. God may combine the sepa- 
rate interests of every individual of the hu- 
man race, and the strenuous prosecution of 
these interests by each of them, into a har- 
monious system of operation, for the good 
of one great and extended family. But if, 
on estimating the character of each indivi- 
dual member of that family, we shall find 
that the mainspring of his actions is the 
urgency of a selfish inclination ; and that to 
this his very virtues are subordinate : and 
that even the honesties which mark his con- 
duct are chiefly, though, perhaps, insensi- 
bly due to the selfishness which actuates 
and occupies his whole heart; — then, let 
the semblance be what it may, still the re- 
ality of the case accords with the most mor- 
tifying representations of the New Testa- 
ment. The moralities of nature are but the 
moralities of a day, and will cease to be ap- 
plauded when this world, the only theatre 
of their applause, is burnt up. They are 
but the blossoms of that rank efflorescence 
which is nourished on the soil of human 
corruption, and can never bring forth fruit 
unto immortality. The discerner of all se- 
crets sees that they emanate from a princi- 
ple which is at utter war with the charity 
that prepares for the enjoyments, and that 
glows in the bosoms of the celestial ; and, 
therefore, though highly esteemed among 
men, they may be in His sight an abomina- 
tion. 

Let us, if possible, make this still clearer 
to your apprehension, by descending more 
minutely into particulars. There is not one 
member of the great mercantile family, with 
whom there does not obtain a reciprocal in- 
terest between himself and all those who 
compose the circle of his various corres- 
pondents. He does them good ; but his eye 
Ts all the while open to the expectation of 
their doing him something again. They 
minister to him all the profits of his employ- 
ment ; but not unless he minister to them 
of his service, and attention, and fidelity. 
Insomuch, that if his credit abandon him, 
his prosperity will also abandon him. If 
he forfeit the confidence of others, he will 
also forfeit their custom along with it. So 
that, in perfect consistency with interest 
being the reigning idol of his soul, he may 
still be, in every way, as sensitive of en- 
croachment upon his reputation, as he would 
be of encroachment upon his property ; and 
be as vigilant, to the full, in guarding his 
name against the breath of calumny, or sus- 
picion, as in guarding his estate against the 
inroads of a depredator. Now, this tie of 



244 INFLUENCE OF SELFISHNESS ON MERCANTILE INTERCOURSE. [DISC. 



reciprocity, which binds him into fellowship 
and good faith with society at large, will 
sometimes, in the mere course of business, 
and its unlooked-for fluctuations, draw one 
or two individuals into a still more special 
intimacy with himself. There may be a 
lucrative partnership, in which it is the 
pressing necessity of each individual, that 
all of them, for a time at least, stick closely 
and steadily together. Or there may be a 
thriving interchange of commodities struck 
out, where it is the mutual interest of all 
who are concerned, that each take his as- 
signed part and adhere to it. Or there may 
be a promising arrangement devised, which 
it needs concert and understanding to ef- 
fectuate; and, for which purpose, several 
may enter into a skilful and well-ordered 
combination. 

We are neither saying that this is very 
general in the mercantile world, or that it 
is in the slightest degree unfair. But you 
must be sensible, that, amid the reelings and 
movements of the great trading society, the 
phenomenon sometimes offers itself of a 
groupe of individuals who have entered 
into some compact of mutual accommoda- 
tion, and who, therefore, look as if they were 
isolated from the rest by the bond of some 
more strict and separate alliance. All we 
aim at, is to gather illustration to our prin- 
ciple, out of the way in which the members 
of this associated cluster conduct themselves 
to each other ; how such a cordiality may 
pass between them, as one could suppose 
to be the cordiality of genuine friendship ; 
how such an intercourse might be main- 
tained among their families, as might look 
like the intercourse of unmingled affection ; 
how such an exuberance of mutual hospi- 
tality might be poured forth as to recal those 
poetic days when avarice was unknown, and 
men lived in harmony together on the fruits 
of one common inheritance ; and how nobly 
disdainful each member of the combination 
appeared to be of such little savings, as could 
be easily surrendered to the general good 
and adjustment of the whole concern. And 
all this, you will observe, so long as the con- 
cern prospered, and it was for the interest 
of each to abide by it ; and the respective 
accounts current gladdened the heart of 
every individual by the exhibition of an 
abundant share of the common benefit to 
himself. But then, every such system of 
operations comes to an end. And what we 
ask is, if it be at all an unlikely evolution 
of our nature, that the selfishness which lay 
in wrapt concealment, during the progress 
of these transactions, should now come for- 
ward and put out to view its cloven foot, 
when they draw to their termination? And 
as the tie of reciprocity gets looser, is it not 
a very possible thing, that the murmurs of 
something like unfair or unhandsome con- 
duct should get louder? And that a fellow- 



ship, hitherto carried forward in smiles, 
should break up in reproaches? And that 
the whole character of this fellowship should 
show itself more unequivocally as it comes 
nearer to its close ? And that some of its 
members, as they are becoming disengaged 
from the bond of mutual interest, should 
also become disengaged from the bond of 
those mutual delicacies and proprieties, and 
even honesties, which had heretofore mark- 
ed the whole of their intercourse? — Inso- 
much, that a matter in which all the parties 
looked so fair, and magnanimous, and libe- 
ral, might at length degenerate into a con- 
test of keen appropriation, a scramble of 
downright and undisguised selfishness ? 

But though this may happen sometimes, 
we are far from saying that it will hap- 
pen generally. It could not, in fact, with- 
out such an exposure of character, as might 
not merely bring a man down in the esti- 
mation of those from whom he is now with- 
drawing himself, but also in the estimation 
of that general public with whom he is still 
linked; and on whose opinion of him there 
still rests the dependence of a strong per- 
sonal interest. To estimate precisely the 
whole influence of this consideration, or the 
degree in which honesty of character is re- 
solvable into selfishness of character, it 
would be necessary to suppose, that the tie 
of reciprocity was dissolved, not merely be- 
tween the individual and those with whom 
he had been more particularly and more 
intimately associated — but that the tie of 
reciprocity was dissolved between the in- 
dividual and the whole of his former ac- 
quaintanceship in business. 

Now, the situation which comes nearest 
to this, is that of a man on the eve of bank- 
ruptcy, and with no sure hope of so retriev- 
ing his circumstances as again to emerge 
into credit, and be restored to some em- 
ployment of gain or of confidence. If he 
have either honourable or religious feel- 
ings, then character, as connected with 
principle, may still, in his eyes, be some- 
thing; but character, as connected with 
prudence, or the calculations of interest, 
may now be nothing. In the dark hour 
of the desperation of his soul, he may feel, 
in fact, that he has nothing to lose ; and let 
us now see how he will conduct himself, 
when thus released from that check of re- 
putation which formerly held him. In 
these circumstances, if you have ever seen 
the man abandon himself to utter regard- 
lessness of all the honesties which at one 
time adorned him, and doing such disgrace- 
ful things as he would have spurned at the 
very suggestion of, in the days of his pros- 
perity ; and, forgetful of his former name 
practising all possible shifts of duplicity to 
prolong the credit of a tottering establish- 
ment ; and to keep himself afloat for a few 
months of torture and restlessness, weaving 



ni.] 



INFLUENCE OF SELFISHNESS ON MERCANTILE INTERCOURSE. 



245 



such a web of entanglement around his 
many friends and companions, as shall 
most surely implicate some of them in his 
fall; and, as the crisis approaches, plying 
his petty wiles how to survive the coming 
ruin, and to gather up of its fragments to 
his family. O ! how much is there here to 
deplore ; and who can be so ungenerous as 
to stalk in unrelenting triumph over the 
helplessness of so sad an overthrow ! But 
if ever such an exhibition meet your eye, 
while we ask you not to withhold your pity 
from the unfortunate, we ask you also to 
read in it a lesson of worthless and sunken 
humanity; how even its very virtues are 
tinctured with corruption; and that the 
honour, and the truth, and the equity, with 
which man proudly thinks his nature to be 
embellished, are often reared on the basis 
of selfishness, and lie prostrate in the dust 
when that basis is cut away. 

But other instances may be quoted, which 
go still more satisfactorily to prove the very 
extended influence of selfishness on the 
moral judgments of our species ; and how 
readily the estimate, which a man forms on 
the question of right and wrong, accommo- 
dates itself to his own interest. There is a 
strong general reciprocity of advantage be- 
tween the government of a country and 
all its inhabitants. The one party, in this 
relation, renders a revenue for the expenses 
of the state. The other party renders back 
again protection from injustice and vio- 
lence. Were the means furnished by the 
former withheld, the benefit conferred by 
the latter would cease to be administered. 
So that, with the government, and the pub- 
lic at large, nothing can be more strict, and 
more indispensable, than the tie of reciproci- 
ty that is between them. But this is not 
felt, and therefore not acted upon by the 
separate individuals who compose that pub- 
lic. The reciprocity does not come home 
with a sufficiently pointed and personal ap- 
plication to each of them. Every man may 
calculate, that though he, on the strength 
of some dexterous evasions, were to keep 
back of the tribute that is due by him, the 
mischief that would recoil upon himself is 
divided with the rest of his countrymen ; 
and the portion of it which comes to his 
door would be so very small, as to be alto- 
gether insensible. To all feeling he will 
just be as effectually sheltered, by the pow- 
er and the justice of his country, whether 
he pay his taxes in full, or under the guise 
of some skilful concealment, pay them but 
partially ; and therefore, to every practical 
effect, the tie of reciprocity, between him 
and his sovereign, is in a great measure dis- 
solved. Now, what is the actual adjust- 
ment of the moral sense, and moral conduct, 
of the population, to this state of matters 1 
It is quite palpable. Subterfuges, which in 
private business, would be held to be dis- 



graceful, are not held to be so disgraceful in 
this department of a man's personal transac- 
tions. The cry of indignation, which would 
be lifted up against the falsehood or disho- 
nesty of a man's dealings in his own neigh- 
bourhood, is mitigated or unheard, though, in 
his dealings with the state, there should be 
the very same relaxation of principle. On 
this subject, there is a convenience of popu- 
lar feeling, which, if extended to the whole 
of human traffic, would banish all its secu- 
rities from the world. Giving reason to 
believe, that much of the good done among 
men, is done on the expectation of a good 
that will be rendered back again ; and that 
many of the virtues, by which the fellow- 
ship of human beings is regulated and sus- 
tained, still leave the imputation unredeem- 
ed, of its being a fellowship of sinners ; and 
that both the practice of morality, and the 
demand for it, are measured by the opera- 
tion of a self-love, which, so far from signal- 
izing any man, or preparing him for eter- 
nity, he holds in common with the fiercest 
and most degenerate of his species; and 
that, apart from the consideration of his 
own interest, simplicity and godly since- 
rity are, to a great degree, unknown ; inso- 
much, that though God has interposed with 
a law, of giving unto all their dues, and 
tribute to whom tribute is due — we may 
venture an affirmation of the vast majority 
of this tribute, that it is rendered for wrath's 
sake, and not for conscience's sake. Of so 
little effect is unsupported and solitary con- 
science to stem the tide of selfishness. And 
it is chiefly when honesty and truth go over- 
bearingly along with this tide, that the 
voice of man is lifted up to acknowledge 
them, and his heart becomes feelingly alive 
to a sense of their obligations. 

And let us here just ask, in what relation 
of criminality does he who uses a contra- 
band article stand to him who deals in it? 
In precisely the same relation that a re- 
ceiver of stolen goods stands to a thief or a 
depredator. There may be some who re- 
volt at the idea of being so classified. But, 
if the habit we have just denounced can be 
fastened on men of rank and seemly repu- 
tation, let us just humble ourselves into the 
admission of how little the righteous prac- 
tice of the world has the foundation of righ- 
teous principle to sustain it ; how feeble are 
the securities of rectitude, had it nothing to 
uphold it but its own native charms, and 
native obligations ; how society is held to- 
gether, only because the grace of God can 
turn to account the worthless propensities 
of the individuals who compose it; and 
how, if the virtues of fidelity, and truth, and 
justice, had not the prop of selfishness to 
rest upon, they would, with the exception 
of a few scattered remnants, take their de- 
parture from the world, and leave it a prey 
to the anarchy of the human passions — to 



248 



INFLUENCE OF SELFISHNESS ON MERCANTILE INTERCOURSE. [DISC. 



the wild misrule of all those depravities 
which agitate and deform our ruined na- 
ture. 

The very same exhibition of our nature 
may be witnessed in almost every parish of 
our sister kingdom, where the people ren- 
der a revenue to the minister of religion, 
and the minister' renders back again a re- 
turn, it is true — but not such a return, as, in 
the estimation of gross and ordinary selfish- 
ness, is at ail deemed an equivalent for the 
sacrifice which has been made. In this in- 
stance, too, that law of reciprocity which 
reigns throughout the common transactions 
of merchandise, is altogether suspended ; 
and the consequence is, that the law of 
right is trampled into ashes. A tide of pub- 
lic odium runs against the men who are 
outraged of their property, and a smile of 
general connivance rewards the successful 
dexterity of the men who invade it. That 
portion of the annual produce of our soil, 
which, on a foundation of legitimacy as 
firm as the property of the soil itself, is al- 
lotted to a set of national functionaries — 
and which, but for them, would all have 
gone, in the shape of increased revenue, to 
the indolent proprietor, is altogether thrown 
loose from the guardianship of that great 
principle of reciprocity, on which we strong- 
ly suspect that the honesties of this world 
are mainly supported. The national clergy 
of England may be considered as standing 
out of the pale of this guardianship; and 
the consequence is, that what is most right- 
fully and most sacredly theirs, is abandoned 
to the gambol of many thousand depreda- 
tors ; and in addition to a load of most un- 
merited obloquy, have they had to sustain 
all the heartburnings of known and felt in- 
justice ; and that intercourse between the 
teachers and the taught, which ought surely 
to be an intercourse of peace, and friend- 
ship, and righteousness, is turned into a 
contest between the natural avarice of the 
one party, and the natural resentments of 
the other. It is not that we wish our sister 
church were swept away, for we honestly 
think, that the overthrow of that establish- 
ment would be a severe blow to the Chris- 
tianity of our land. It is not that we envy 
that great hierarchy the splendor of her en- 
dowments — for better a dinner of herbs, 
When surrounded by the love of parishioners, 
than a preferment of stalled dignity, and 
strife therewith. It is not either that we 
look upon her ministers as having at all 
disgraced themselves by their rapacity; 
for look to the amount of the encroach- 
ments that are made upon them, and you 
will see that they have carried their privi- 
leges with the most exemplary forbearance 
and moderation. But from these very en- 
croachments do we infer how lawless a hu- 
man being will become, when emancipated 
from the bond of his own interest f how 



much such a state of things must multiply 
the temptations to injustice over the face 
of the country ; and how desirable, there- 
fore, that it were put an end to — not by the 
abolition of that venerable church, but by a 
fair and liberal commutation of the reve- 
nues which support her — not by bringing 
any blight on the property of her ecclesias- 
tics, but by the removal of a most devour- 
ing blight from the worth of her popula- 
tion — that every provocative to justice may 
be done away, and the frailty of human 
principle be no longer left to such a ruinous 
and such a withering exposure. 

This instance we would not have men- 
tioned, but for the sake of adding another 
experimental proof to the lesson of our text ; 
and we now hasten onward to the lesson 
itself, with a few of its applications. 

We trust you are convinced, from what 
has been said, that much of the actual ho- 
nesty of the world is due to the selfishness 
of the world. And then you will surely 
admit, that in as far as this is the actuating 
principle, honesty descends from its place 
as a rewardable, or even as an amiable vir- 
tue, and sinks down into the character of a 
mere prudential virtue — which, so far from 
conferring any moral exaltation on him by 
whom it is exemplified, emanates out of a 
propensity that seems inseparable from the 
constitution of every sentient being — and by 
which man is, in one point, assimilated 
either to the most worthless of his own spe- 
cies, or to those inferior animals among 
whom worth is unattainable. 

And let it not deafen the humbling im- 
pression of this argument, that you are not 
distinctly conscious of the operation of sel- 
fishness, as presiding at every step over the 
honesty of your daily and familiar transac- 
tions ; and that the only inward checks 
against injustice, of which you are sensible, 
are the aversion of a generous indignancy 
towards it, and the positive discomfort you 
would incur by the reproaches of your own 
conscience. Selfishness, in fact, may have 
originated and alimented the whole of this 
virtue that belongs to you, and yet the mind 
incur the same discomfort by the violation 
of it, that it would do by the violation of 
any other of its established habits. And as 
to the generous indignancy of your feelings 
against all that is fraudulently and disgrace- 
fully wrong, let us never forget, that this 
may be the nurtured fruit of that common 
selfishness which links human beings with 
each other into a relationship of mutual de- 
pendence. This may be seen, in all its 
perfection, among the leagued and sworn 
banditti of the highway; who, while exe- 
crated by society at large for the compact 
of iniquity into which they have entered, 
can maintain the most heroic fidelity to the 
virtues of their own brotherhood — and be, 
in every way, as lofty and as chivalric with 



INFLUENCE OF SELFISHNESS ON MERCANTILE INTERCOURSE. 



247 



their points of honour, as we are with ours ; 
and. elevate as indignant a voice against the 
worthlessness of him who could betray the 
secret of their association, or break up any 
of the securities by which it was held, to- 
gether. And, in like manner, may we be 
the members of a wider combination, yet 
brought together by the tie of reciprocal in- 
terest ; and all the virtues essential to the 
existence, or to the good of such a combi- 
nation, may come to be idolized amongst 
us ; and the breath of human applause may 
fan them into a lustre of splendid estima- 
tion; and yet the good man of society on 
earth be, in common with all his fellows, an 
utter outcast from the society of heaven — 
with his heart altogether bereft of that alle- 
giance to God which forms the reigning 
principle of his unfallen creation — and in a 
state of entire destitution either as to that 
love of the Supreme Being, or as to that 
disinterested love of those around us, which 
form the graces and the virtues of eternity. 

We have not affirmed that there is no 
such thing as a native and disinterested 
principle of honour among men. But we 
have affirmed, on a former occasion, that a 
sense of honour may be in the heart, and 
the sense of God be utterly away from it. 
And we affirm now, that much of the ho- 
nest practice of the world is not due to ho- 
nesty of principle at all, but takes its origin 
from a baser ingredient of our constitution 
altogether. How wide is the operation of 
selfishness on the one hand, and how limit- 
ed is the operation of abstract principle on 
the other, it were difficult to determine; 
and such a labyrinth to man is his own 
heart, that he may be utterly unable, from 
his own consciousness, to answer this ques- 
tion. But amid all the difficulties of such 
an analysis to himself, we ask him to think 
of another who is unseen by us, but who is 
represented to us as seeing all things. We 
know not in what characters this heavenly 
witness can be more impressively set forth, 
than as pondering the heart, as weighing 
the secrets of the heart, as fastening an at- 
tentive and a judging eye on all the move- 
ments of it, as treasuring up the whole of 
man's outward and inward history in a 
book of remembrance ; and as keeping it 
in reserve for that day when, it is said, that 
the secrets of all hearts shall be laid open ; 
and God shall bring out every secret thing, 
whether it be good, or whether it be evil. 
Your consciousness may not distinctly in- 
form you, in how far the integrity of your 
habits is due to the latent operation of sel- 
fishness, or to the more direct and obvious 
operation of honour. But your conscious- 
ness may, perhaps, inform you distinctly 
enough, how little a share the will of God 
has in the way of influence on any of your 
doings. Your own sense and memory of 
what passes within you, may charge you 



with the truth of this monstrous indictment 
— that you live without God in the world ; 
that however you may be signalized among 
your fellows, by that worth of character 
which is held in highest value and demand 
amongst the individuals of a mercantile so- 
ciety, it is at least without the influence of 
a godly principle that you have reached the 
maturity of an established reputation ; that 
either the proud emotions of rectitude which 
glow within your bosom are totally untinc- 
tured by a feeling of homage to the Deity — 
or that, without any such emotions, Self is 
the divinity you have all along ^vorshipped, 
and your very virtues are so many offer- 
ings of reverence at her shrine. If such 
be, in fact, the nakedness of your spiritual 
condition, is it not high time, we ask, that 
you awaken out of this delusion, and shake 
the lying spirit of deep and heavy slumber 
away from you ? Is it not high time, when 
eternity is so fast coming on, that you ex- 
amine your accounts with God, and seek 
for a settlement with that Being who will 
so soon meet your disembodied spirits with 
the question of— -what have you done unto 
me ? — And if all the virtues which adorn 
you are but the subserviences of time, and 
of its accommodation — if either done alto- 
gether unto yourselves, or done without the 
recognition of God on the spontaneous in- 
stigation of your own feelings — is it not 
high time that you lean no longer to the 
securities on which you have rested, and 
that you seek for acceptance with your Ma- 
ker on a more firm and unalterable foun- 
dation? 

This, then, is the terminating object of 
all the experience that we have tried to set 
before you. We want to be a schoolmas- 
ter to bring you unto- Christ. We want 
you to open your eyes to the accordancy 
which obtains between the theology of the 
New Testament and the actual state and 
history of man. Above all, we want you 
to turn your eyes inwardly upon your- 
selves, and there to behold a character 
without one trace or lineament of godli- 
ness — there to behold a heart set upon to- 
tally other things than those which consti- 
tute the portion and the reward of eternity 
— there to behold every principle of action 
resolvable into the idolatry of self, or, at 
least into something independent of the au- 
thority of God — there to behold how worth- 
less in their substance are those virtues 
which look so imposing in their semblance 
and their display, and draw round them 
here a popularity and an applause which 
will all be dissipated into nothing, when 
hereafter they are brought up for examina- 
tion to the judgment seat. We want you, 
when the revelation of the gospel charges 
you with the totality and magnitude of 
your corruption, that you acquiesce in that 
charge; and that you may perceive the 



248 



INFLUENCE OF SELFISHNESS ON MERCANTILE INTERCOURSE. 



[DISC. 



trueness of it, under the disguise of all 
those hollow and unsubstantial accomplish- 
ments, with which nature may deck her 
own fallen and degenerate children. It is 
easy to be amused, and interested, and in- 
tellectually regard by an analysis of the 
human character, and a survey of human 
society. But it is not so easy to reach the 
individual conscience with the lesson — we 
are undone. It is not so easy to strike the 
alarm into your hearts of the present guilt, 
and the future damnation. It is not so easy 
to send the pointed arrow of conviction 
into your bosoms, where it may keep by 
you and pursue you like an arrow sticking 
fast ; or so to humble you into the conclu- 
sion, that in the sight of God, you are an 
accursed thing, as that you may seek unto 
him who became a curse for you, and as 
that the preaching of his Cross might cease 
to be foolishness. 

Be assured, then, if you keep by the 
ground of being justified by your present 
works, you will perish: and though we 
may not have succeeded in convincing you 
of their worthlessness, be assured that a 
day is coming when such a flaw of deceit- 
fulness, in the principle of them all, shall 
be laid open, as will demonstrate the equity 
of your entire and everlasting condemna- 
tion. To avert the fearfulness of that day 
is the message of the great atonement 
sounded in your ears — and the blood of 
Christ, cleansing from all sin, is offered to 
your acceptance; and if you turn away 
from it, you add to the guilt of a broken 
law the insult of a neglected gospel. But 
if you take the pardon of the gospel on the 
footing of the gospel, then, such is the effi- 
cacy of this great expedient, that it will 
reach an application of mercy farther than 
the eye of your own conscience ever reach- 
ed; that it will redeem you from the guilt 
even of your most secret and unsuspected 
iniquities ; and thoroughly wash you from 
a taint of sinfulness, more inveterate than, 
in the blindness of nature, you ever thought 
of, or ever conceived to belong to you. 

But when a man becomes a believer, 
there are two great events which take 
place at this great turning point in his his- 
tory. One of them takes place in heaven 
— even the expunging of his name from the 
book of condemnation. Another of them 
takes place on earth — even the application 
of such a sanctifying influence to his per- 
son, that all old things are done away with 
him, and all things become new with him. 
He is made the workmanship of God in 
Christ Jesus our Lord. He is not merely 



forgiven the sin of every one evil work of 
which he had aforetime been guilty, but 
he is created anew unto the corresponding 
good work. And therefore, if a Christian, 
will his honesty be purified from that taint 
of selfishness by which the general honesty 
of this world is so deeply and extensively 
pervaded. He will not do this good thing, 
that any good thing may be done unto 
him again. He will do it on a simple re- 
gard to its own native and independent 
rectitude. He will do it because it is ho- 
nourable, and because God wills him so to 
adorn the doctrine of his Saviour. All his 
fair dealing, and all his friendship, wijl be 
fair dealing and friendship without interest. 
The principle that is in him will stand in 
no need of aid from any such auxiliary — 
but strong in its own unborrowed re- 
sources, will it impress a legible stamp of 
dignity and uprightness on the whole va- 
riety of his transactions in the world. All 
men find it their advantage, by the integrity 
of their dealings, to prolong the existence 
of some gainful fellowship into which they 
may have entered. But with him, the 
same unsullied integrity which kept this 
fellowship together, and sustained the pro- 
gress of it, will abide with him through 
its last transactions, and dignify its full 
and final termination. Most men find, 
that, without the reverberation of any mis- 
chief on their own heads, they could re- 
duce beneath the point of absolute jus- 
tice, the charges of taxation. But he has 
a conscience both towards God, and to- 
wards man, which will not let him; and 
there is a rigid truth in all his returns, a 
pointed and precise accuracy in all his pay- 
ments. When hemmed in with circum- 
stances of difficulty, and evidently tottering 
to his fall, the demand of nature is, that 
he should ply his every artifice to secrete 
a provision for his family. But a Chris- 
tian mind is incapable of artifice ; and the 
voice of conscience within him will ever 
be louder than the voice of necessity ; and 
he will be open as day with his creditors, 
nor put forth his hand to that which is 
rightfully theirs, any more than he would 
put forth his hand to the perpetration of a 
sacrilege; and though released altogether 
from that tie of interest which binds a man 
to equity with his fellows, yet the tie of 
principle will remain with him in all its 
strength. Nor will it ever be found that 
he, for the sake of subsistence, will enter 
into fraud, seeing that, as one of the chil- 
dren of light, he would not, to gain the 
whole world, lose his own soul. 



ESTIMATION OF THE GUILT OF DISHONESTY. 



249 



DISCOURSE IV. 

Tlie Guilt of Dishonesty not to be estimated by the Gain of it. 

" He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much ; and he that is unjust in the least, is unjust 

also in much." — Luke xvi. 10. 



It is the fine poetical conception of a late 
poetical countryman, whose fancy too often 
grovelled among the despicable of human 
character — but who, at the same time, was 
capable of exhibiting, either in pleasing or 
in proud array, both the tender and the 
noble of human character — when he says 
of the man who carried a native, unborrow- 
ed, self-sustained rectitude in his bosom, 
that " his eye, even turned on empty space, 
beamed keen with honour." It was affirm- 
ed, in the last discourse, that much of the ho- 
nourable practice of the world rested on the 
substratum of selfishness ; that society was 
held together in the exercise of its relative 
virtues, mainly, by the tie of reciprocal ad- 
vantage ; that a man's own interest bound 
him to all those average equities which ob- 
tained in the neighbourhood around him; 
and in which, if he proved himself to be 
glaringly deficient, he would be abandoned 
by the respect, and the confidence, and the 
good will of the people with whom he had 
to do. It is a melancholy thought, how 
little the semblance of virtue upon earth 
betokens the real and substantial presence 
of virtuous principle among men. But on 
the other hand, though it be a rare, there 
cannot be a more dignified attitude of the 
soul, than when of itself it kindles with a 
sense of justice, and the holy flame is fed, 
as it were, by its own energies; than 
when man moves onwards in an unchang- 
ing course of moral magnanimity, and dis- 
dains the aid of those inferior principles, 
by which gross and sordid humanity is 
kept from all the grosser violations ; than 
when he rejoices in truth as his kindred 
and congenial element; — so, that though 
unpeopled of all its terrestrial accompani- 
ments; though he saw no interest what- 
ever to be associated with its fulfilment; 
though without one prospect either of 
fame or of emolument before him, would 
his eye, even when turned on emptiness 
itself, still retain the living lustre that had 
beenlighted up in it, by a feeling of inward 
and independent reverence. 

It has already been observed, and that 
fully and frequently enough, that a great 
part of the homage which is rendered to 
integrity in the world, is due to the opera- 
tion of selfishness. And this substantially 
is the reason, why the principle of the text 
has so very slender a hold upon the human 
conscience. Man is ever prone to estimate 
the enormity of injustice, by the degree in 



which he suffers from it. He brings this 
moral question to the standard of his own 
interest. A master will bear with all the 
lesser liberties of his servants, so long as he 
feels them to be harmless ; and it is not till 
he is awakened to the apprehension of per- 
sonal injury, from the amount or frequency 
of the embezzlements, that his moral indig- 
nation is at all sensibly awakened. And 
thus it is, that the maxim of our great 
teacher of righteousness seems to be very 
much unfelt, or forgotten, in society. Un- 
faithfulness in that which is little, and un- 
faithfulness in that which is much, are very 
far from being regarded, as they were by 
him, under the same aspect of criminality. 
If there be no great hurt, it is felt that there 
is no great harm. The innocence of a dis- 
honest freedom in respect of morality, is 
rated by its insignificance in respect of mat- 
ter. The margin which separates the right 
from the wrong, is remorselessly trodden un- 
der foot, so long as each makes only a mi- 
nute and gentle encroachment beyond the 
landmark of his neighbour's territory. On 
this subject there is a loose and popular es- 
timate, which is not at one with the deliver- 
ance of the New Testament; a habit of 
petty invasion on the side of aggressors, 
which is scarcely felt by them to be at all 
iniquitous — and even on the part of those 
who are thus made free with, there is a 
habit of loose and careless toleration. 
There is, in fact, a negligence or a dor- 
mancy of principle among men, which 
causes this sort of injustice to be easily 
practised on the one side, and as easily put 
up with on the other; and, in a general 
slackness of observation, is this virtue, in 
its strictness and in its delicacy, completely 
overborne, 

It is the taint of selfishness, then, which 
has so marred and corrupted the moral 
sensibility of our world ; and the man, if 
such a man can be, whose " eye, even turned 
On empty space, beams keen with honour ;" 
and whose homage, therefore, to the virtue 
of justice, is altogether freed from the mix- 
ture of unworthy and interested feelings, 
will long to render to her, in every instance, 
a faultless and a completed offering. What- 
ever his forbearance to others, he could not 
suffer the slightest blot of corruption upon 
any doings of his own. He cannot be sa- 
tisfied with any thing short of the very last 
jot and tittle of the requirements of equity 
being fulfilled. He not merely shares in 



250 



ESTIMATION OF THE GUILT OF DISHONESTY. 



[disc. 



the revolt of the general world against such 
outrageous departures from the rule of 
right, as would cany in their train the ruin 
of acquaintances or the distress of families. 
Such is the delicacy of the principle within 
him, that he could not have peace under 
the consciousness even of the minutest and 
least discoverable violation. He looks fully 
and fearlessly at the whole account which 
justice has against him; and he cannot 
rest, so long as there is a single article un- 
met, or a single demand unsatisfied. If, in 
any transaction of his there was so much 
as a farthing of secret and injurious reser- 
vation on his side, this would be to him 
like an accursed thing, which marred the 
character of the whole proceeding, and 
spread over it such an aspect of evil, as to 
offend and. to disturb him. He could not 
bear the whisperings of his own heart, if it 
told him, that, in so much as by one iota 
of defect, he had balanced the matter un- 
fairly between himself and the unconscious 
individual with whom he deals. It would 
lie a burden upon his mind to hurt and to 
make him unhappy, till the opportunity of 
explanation had come round, and he had 
obtained ease to his conscience, by acquit- 
ting himself to the full of all his obligations. 
It is justice in the uprightness of her atti- 
tude : it is justice in the onwardness of her 
path ; it is justice disdaining every advan- 
tage that would tempt her, by ever so little 
to the right or to the left ; it is justice spurn- 
ing the littleness of each paltry enticement 
away from her, and maintaining herself, 
without deviation, in a track so purely rec- 
tilinear, that even the most jealous and mi- 
croscopic eye could not find in it the slight- 
est aberration : this is the justice set forth 
by our great moral Teacher in the passage 
now submitted to you ; and by which we 
are told, that this virtue refuses fellowship 
with every degree of iniquity that is per- 
ceptible; and that, were the very least act of 
unfaithfulness admitted, she would feel as if 
in her sanctity she had been violated, as if 
in her character she had sustained an over- 
throw. 

In the further prosecution of this dis- 
course, let us first attempt to elucidate the 
principle of our text, and then urge onward 
to its practical consequences — both as it re- 
spects our general relation to God, and as 
it respects the particular lesson of faithful- 
ness that may be educed from it. 

I. The great principle of the text is, that 
he who has sinned though to a small amount 
in respect of the fruit of his transgression — 
provided he has done so, by passing over a 
forbidden limit which was distinctly known 
to him, has in the act of doing so, incurred 
a full condemnation in respect of the prin- 
ciple of his transgression. In one word, 
that the gain of it may be small, while the 
guilt of it may be great; that the latter 



ought not to be measured by the former ; 
but that he who is unfaithful in the least, 
shall be dealt with in respect of the offence 
he has given to God, in the same way as 
if he had been unfaithful in much. 

The first reason, which we would assign 
in vindication of this is, that by a small act 
of injustice, the line which separates the 
right from the wrong is just as effectually 
broken over as by a great act of injustice. 
There is a tendency in gross and corporeal 
man to rate the criminality of injustice by 
the amount of its appropriations — to reduce 
it to a computation of weight and measure — 
to count the man who has gained a double 
sum by his dishonesty, to be doubly more 
dishonest than his neighbour — to make it 
an affair of product rather than of princi- 
ple ; and thus to weigh the morality of a 
character in the same arithmetical balance 
with number or with magnitude. Now, 
this is not the rule of calculation on which 
our Saviour has proceeded in the text. He 
speaks to the man who is only half an inch 
within the limit of forbidden ground, in the 
very same terms by which he addresses the 
man who has made the furthest and the 
largest incursions upon it. It is true, that 
he is only a little way upon the wrong side 
of the line of demarcation. But why is he 
upon it at all ? It was in the act of cross- 
ing that line, and not in the act of going 
onwards after he had crossed it — it was 
then that the contest between right and 
wrong was entered upon, and then it was 
decided. That was the instant of time at 
which principle struck her surrender. The 
great pull which the man had to make, was 
in the act of overleaping the fence of sepa- 
ration ; and after that was done, j ustice had 
no other barrier by which to obstruct his 
progress over the whole extent of the field 
which she had interdicted. There might 
be barriers of a different description. There 
might be still a revolting of humanity 
against the sufferings that would be inflicted 
by an act of larger fraud or depredation. 
There might be a dread of exposure, if the 
dishonesty should so swell, in point of 
amount, as to become more noticeable. 
There might, after the absolute limit be- 
tween justice and injustice is broken, be an- 
other limit against the extending of a man's 
encroachments, in a terror of discovery, 
or in a sense of interest, or even in the re- 
lentings of a kindly or a compunctious feel- 
ing towards him who is the victim of in- 
justice. But this is not the limit with 
which the question of a man's truth, or a 
man's honesty, has to do. These have al- 
ready been given up. He may only be a 
little way within the margin of the unlaw- 
ful territory, but still he is upon it ; and the 
God who finds him there will reckon with 
him, and deal with him accordingly. Other 
principles and other considerations, may 



IV] 



ESTIMATION OF THE GUILT OF DISHONESTY. 



251 



restrain his progress to the very heart of 
the territory, but justice is not one of them. 
This he deliberately flung away from him, 
at that moment when he passed the line of 
circumvallation ; and, though in the neigh- 
bom-hood of that line, he may hover all his 
days at the petty work of picking and pur- 
loining such fragments as he meets with, 
though he may never venture himself to a 
place of more daring or distinguished atro- 
city, God sees of him, that, in respect of the 
principle of justice, at least, there is an utter 
unhingement. And thus it is that the Sa- 
viour, who knew what was in man, and who, 
therefore, knew all the springs of that mo- 
ral machinery by which he is actuated, 
pronounces of him who was unfaithful in 
the least, that he was unfaithful also in 
much. 

After the transition is accomplished, the 
progress will follow of course, just as op- 
portunity invites, and just as circumstances 
make it safe and practicable. For it is not 
with justice as it is with generosity, and 
some of the other virtues. There is not 
the same graduation in the former as there 
is in the latter. The man who, other cir- 
cumstances being equal, gives away a dou- 
ble sum in charity, may, with more pro- 
priety be reckoned doubly more generous 
than his neighbour; than the man who, 
with the same equality of circumstances, 
only ventures on half the extent of fraudu- 
lency, can be reckoned only one half as 
unjust as his neighbour. Each has broken 
a clear line of demarcation. Each has trans- 
gressed a distinct and visible limit which he 
knew to be forbidden. Each has knowingly 
forced a passage beyond his neighbour's 
land-mark — and that is the place where 
justice has laid the main force of her inter- 
dict. As it respects the materiel of injus- 
tice, the question revolves itself into a mere 
computation of quantity. As it respects 
the morale of injustice, the computation is 
upon other principles. It is upon the latter 
that our Saviour pronounces himself. And 
he gives us to understand, that a very hum- 
ble degree of the former may indicate the 
latter in all its atrocity. He stands on the 
breach between the lawful and the unlaw- 
ful ; and he tells us, that the man who en- 
ters by a single footstep on the forbidden 
ground, immediately gathers upon his per- 
son the full hue and character of guiltiness. 
He admits no extenuation of the lesser acts 
of dishonesty. He does not make right 
pass into wrong, by a gradual melting of 
the one into the other. He does not thus 
obliterate the distinctions of morality. 
There is no shading off at the margin of 
guilt, but a clear and vigorous delineation. 
It is not by a gentle transition that a man 
steps over from honesty to dishonesty. 
There is between them a wall rising up 
into heaven ; and the high authority of 



heaven must be stormed ere one inch of 
entrance can be made into the region of 
iniquity. The morality of the Saviour never 
leads him to gloss over the beginnings of 
crime. His object ever is, as in the .text be- 
fore us, to fortify the limit, to cast a ram- 
part of exclusion around the whole territory 
of guilt, and to rear it before the eye of 
man in such characters of strength and sa- 
credness, as should make them feel that it 
is impregnable. 

The second reason, why he who is un- 
faithful in the least has incurred the con- 
demnation of him who is unfaithful in much, 
is, that the littleness of the gain, so far from 
giving a littleness to the guilt, is in fact a 
circumstance of aggravation. There is just 
this difference. He who has committed in- 
justice for the sake of a less advantage, has 
done it on the impulse of a less temptation. 
He has parted with his honesty at an infe- 
rior price ; and this circumstance may go 
so to equalize the estimate, as to bring it 
very much to one with the deliverance, in 
the text, of our great Teacher of righteous- 
ness. The limitation between good and 
evil stood as distinctly before the notice of 
the small as of the great depredator ; and 
he has just made as direct a contravention 
to the first reason, when he passed over 
upon the wrong side of it. And he may 
have made little of gain by the enterprise, 
but this does not allay the guilt of it. Nay, 
by the second reason, this may serve to ag- 
gravate the wrath of the Divinity against 
him. It proves how small the price is which 
he sets upon his eternity, and how cheaply 
he can bargain the favour of God away from 
him, and how low he rates the good of an 
inheritance with him, and for what a trifle 
he can dispose of all interest in his kingdom 
and in his promises. The very circum- 
stance which gives to his character a milder 
transgression in the eyes of the world, 
makes it more odious in the judgment of 
the sanctuary. The more paltry it is in 
respect of profit, the more profane it may 
be in respect of principle. It likens him 
the more to profane Esau, who sold hit 
birthright for a mess of pottage. And thus 
it is, indeed, most woful to think of such 
a senseless and alienated world ; and how 
heedlessly the men of it are posting their 
infatuated way to destruction ; and how, 
for as little gain as might serve them a day, 
they are contracting as much guilt as will 
ruin them for ever ; and are profoundly 
asleep in the midst of such designs and 
such doings, as will form the valid mate- 
rials of their entire and everlasting con- 
demnation. 

It is with argument such as this that we 
would try to strike conviction among a 
very numerous class of offenders in society 
— those who, in the various departments 
of trust, or service, or agency, are ever prac- 



252 



ESTIMATION OF THE GUILT OF DISHONESTY. 



[DISC. 



tismg, in littles, at the work of secret appro- 
priation — those whose hands are in a state 
of constant defilement, by the putting of 
them forth to that Which they ought to 
touch not, and taste not, and handle not — 
those who silently number such pilferments 
as can pass unnoticed among the perqui- 
sites of their office ; and who, by an excess 
in their charges, just so slight as to escape 
detection — or by a habit of purloining, just 
so restrained as to elude discovery, have 
both a conscience very much at ease in 
their own bosoms, and a credit very fair, 
and very entire, among their acquaintances 
around them. They grossly count upon 
the smallness of their transgression. But 
they are just going in a small way to hell. 
They would recoil with violent dislike from 
the act of a midnight depredator. It is just 
because terrors, and trials, and executions, 
have thrown around it the pomp and the 
circumstance of guilt. But at another bar, 
and on a day of more dreadful solemnity, 
their guilt will be made to stand out in its 
essential characters, and their condemna- 
tion will be pronounced from the lips of 
Him who judgeth righteously. They feel 
that they have incurred no outrageous for- 
feiture of character among men, and this 
instils a treacherous complacency into 
their own hearts. But the piercing eye of 
Him who looketh down from heaven is 
upon the reality of the question ; and He 
who ponders the secrets of every bosom, 
can perceive, that the man who recoils only 
from such a degree of injustice as is noto- 
rious, may have no justice whatever in his 
character. He may have a sense of repu- 
tation. He may have the fear of detection 
and disgrace. He may feel a revolt in his 
constitution against the magnitude of a 
gross and glaring violation. He may even 
share in all the feelings and principles of 
that conventional kind of morality which 
obtains in his neighbourhood. But, of that 
principle which is surrendered by the least 
act of unfaithfulness, he has no share what- 
ever. He perceives no overawing sacred- 
*ness in that boundary which separates the 
right from the wrong. If he only keep 
decently near, it is a matter of indifference 
to him whether he be on this or on that 
side of it. He can be unfaithful in that 
which is least. There may be other prin- 
ciples, and other considerations to restrain 
him ; but certain it is, that it is not now the 
principle of justice which restrains him from 
being unfaithful in much. — This is given 
up ; and, through a blindness to the great 
and important principle of our text, this 
virtue may, in its essential character, be as 
good as banished from the world. All its 
protections may be utterly overthrown. 
The line of defence is effaced by which it 
ought to have been firmly and scrupulously 
guarded. The sign-posts of intimation, 



which ought to warn and to scare away, are 
planted along the barrier ; and when, in de- 
fiance to them, the barrier is broken, man 
will not be checked by any sense of honesty, 
at least, from expatiating over the whole 
of the forbidden territory. And thus may 
we gather from the countless peccadilloes 
which are so current in the Various depart- 
ments of trade, and service, and agency— 
from the secret freedoms in which many do 
indulge, without one remonstrance from 
their own heart — from the petty inroads 
that are daily practised on the confines of 
justice, by which its line of demarcation is 
trodden under foot, and it has lost the mo- 
ral distinctness, and the moral charm, that 
should have kept it unviolate — from the ex- 
ceeding multitude of such offences as are 
frivolous in respect of the matter of them, 
but most fearfully important in respect of 
the principle in which they originate — 
from the woful amount of that unseen and 
unrecorded guilt which escapes the cogni- 
zance of the human law, but on the appli- 
cation of the touchstone in our text, may 
be made to stand out in characters of se- 
verest condemnation — from instances, too 
numerous to repeat, but certainly too ob- 
vious to be missed, even by the observation 
of charity, may we gather the frailty of 
human principle, and the virulence of that 
moral poison, which is now in such full 
circulation to taint and to adulterate the 
character of our species. 

Before finishing this branch of our sub- 
ject, we may observe, that it is with this, as 
with many other phenomena of the human 
character, that we are not long in con- 
templation upon it, without coming in sight 
of that great characteristic of fallen man, 
which meets and forces itself upon us in 
every view that we take of him — even the 
great moral disease of ungodliness. It is 
at the precise limit between the right and 
the wrong that the flaming sword of God's 
law is placed. It is there that " Thus saith 
the Lord" presents itself, in legible charac- 
ters, to our view. It is there where the ope- 
ration of his commandment begins; and 
not at any of those higher gradations, where 
a man's dishonesty first appals himself by 
the chance of its detection, or appals others 
by the mischief and insecurity which it 
brings upon social life. An extensive 
fraud upon the revenue, for example, un- 
popular as this branch of justice is, would 
bring a man down from his place of emi- 
nence and credit in mercantile society. 
That petty fraud which is associated with 
so many of those smaller payments, where 
a lie in the written acknowledgment is both 
given and accepted, as a way of escape from 
the legal imposition, circulates at large 
among the members of the great trading 
community. In the former, and in all the 
greater cases of injustice, there is a human 



IT.] 



ESTIMATION OF THE GUILT OF DISHONESTY. 



253 



restraint, and a human terror, in operation. 
There is disgrace and civil punishment, to 
scare away. There are all the sanctions 
of that conventional morality which is sus- 
pended on the fear of man, and the opinion 
of man; and which, without so much as 
the recognition of a God, would naturally 
point its armour against every outrage that 
could sensibly disturb the securities and the 
rights of human society. But so long as 
the disturbance is not sensible — so long as 
the injustice keeps within the limits of 
smallness and secrecy — so long as it is safe 
for the individual to practise it, and, borne 
along on the tide of general example and 
connivance, he has nothing to restrain 
him but that distinct and inflexible word of 
God, which proscribes all unfaithfulness, 
and admits of it in no degrees, and no modi- 
fications — then, let the almost universal 
sleep of conscience attest, how little of God 
there is in the virtue of this world; and 
how much the peace and the protection of 
society are owing to such moralities, as 
ihe mere selfishness of man would lead 
him to ordain, even in a community of 
atheists. 

II. Let us now attempt to unfold a few 
of the practical consequences that may be 
drawn from the principle of the text, both 
in respect to our general relation with God, 
and in respect to the particular lesson of 
faithfulness which may be educed from it. 

1. There cannot be a stronger possible 
illustration of our argument, than the very 
first act of retribution that occurred in the 
history of our species, " And God said unto 
Adam, Of the tree of the knowledge of good 
and evil, thou shalt not eat of it. For in 
the day thou eatest thereof, thou shait 
surely die. But the woman took of the 
fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto 
her husband with her, and he did eat." 

What is it that invests the eating of a soli- 
tary apple with a grandeur so momentous? 
How came an action in itself so minute, to 
be the germ of such mighty consequences 1 
How are we to understand that our first 
parents, by the doing of a single instant, not 
only brought death upon themselves, but 
shed this big and baleful disaster over all 
their posterity? We may not be able to 
answer all these questions, but we may at 
least learn, what a thing of danger it is, • 
under the government of a holy and inflexi- 
ble God, to tamper with the limits of obe- 
dience. By the eating of that apple, a clear 
requirement was broken, and a distinct 
transition was made from loyalty to rebel- 
lion, and an entrance was effected into the 
region of sin — and thus did this one act 
serve like the opening of a gate for a torrent 
of mighty mischief; and if the act itself was 
a trifle, it just went to aggravate its guilt — 
that, for such a trifle, the authority of God 
<;ould be despised and trampled on. At all I 



events, his attribute of truth stood commit- 
ted to the fulfilment of the threatening; and 
the very insignificancy of the deed, which 
provoked the execution of it, gives a sub- 
limer character to the certainty of the fulfil- 
ment. We know how much this trait, in 
the dealings of God with man, has been the 
jeer of infidelity. But in all this ridicule, 
there is truly nothing else than the gross- 
ness of materialism. Had Adam, instead of 
plucking one single apple from the forbid- 
den tree, been armed with the power of a 
malignant spirit, and spread a wanton havoc 
over the face of paradise, and spoiled the 
garden of its loveliness, and been able to mar 
and to deform the whole of that terrestrial 
creation over which God had so recently re- 
joiced — the punishment he sustained would 
have looked to these arithmetical moralists, 
a more adequate return for the offence of 
which he had been guilty. They cannot 
see how the moral lesson rises in greatness, 
just in proportion to the humility of the ma- 
terial accompaniments — and how it wraps a 
sublimer glory around the holiness of the 
Godhead — and how from the transaction, 
such as it is, the conclusion cometh forth 
more nakedly, and, therefore, more impres- 
sively, that it is an evil and a bitter thing to 
sin against the Lawgiver. God said, " Let 
there be light, and it was light ;" and it has 
ever been regarded as a sublime token of 
the Deity, that, from an utterance so simple, 
an accomplishment so quick and so mag- 
nificent should have followed. God said, 
" That he who eateth of the tree in the 
midst of the garden should die." It appears 
indeed, but a little thing, that one should 
put forth his hand to an apple and taste of 
it. But a saying of God was involved in 
the matter — and heaven and earth must pass 
away, ere a saying of his can pass away ; 
and so the apple became decisive of the fate 
of a world ; and, out of the very scantiness 
of the occasion, did there emerge a sublimer 
display of truth and of holiness. The be- 
ginning of the world was, indeed, the period 
of great manifestations of the Godhead ; and 
they all seem to accord, in style and cha- 
racter, with each other ; and in that very 
history, which has called forth the profane 
and unthinking levity of many a scorner, 
may we behold as much of the majesty of 
principle, as in the creation of light, we be- 
hold of the majesty of power. 

But this history furnishes the materials 
of a contemplation still more practical. If, 
for this one offence, Adam and his posterity 
have been so visited— if so rigorously and 
so inflexibly precise be the spirit of God's 
administration — if, under the economy of 
heaven, sin, even in the very humblest of 
its exhibitions, be the object of an intoler- 
ance so jealous and so unrelenting — if the 
Deity be such as this transaction manifests 
him to be, disdainful of fellowship even with 



254 



ESTIMATION OF THE GUILT OF DISHONESTY. 



[disc. 



the very least iniquity, and dreadful in the 
certainty of all his accomplishments against 
it — if, for a single transgression, all the 
promise and all the felicity of paradise had 
to be broken up, and the wretched offen- 
ders had to be turned abroad upon a world, 
now changed by the curse into a wilder- 
ness, and their secure and lovely home of 
innocence behooved to be abandoned, and 
to keep them out, a flaming sword had to 
turn every way, and guard their reaccess to 
the bowers of immortality — if sin be so very 
hateful in the eye of unspotted holiness, 
that, on its very first act, and first appear- 
ance, the wonted communion between hea- 
ven and earth was interdicted— if that was 
the time at which God looked on our spe- 
cies with an altered countenance, and one 
deed of disobedience proved so terribly de- 
cisive of the fate and history of a world — 
what should each individual amongst us 
think of his own danger, whose life has 
been one continued habit of disobedience? 
If we be still in the hands of that God who 
laid so fell a condemnation on this one 
transgression, let us just think of our many 
transgressions, and that every hour we live 
multiplies the account of them ; and that, 
however they may vanish from our own 
remembrance, they are still alive in the 
records of a judge whose eye and whose 
memory never fail him. Let us transfer the 
lesson we have gotten of heaven's jurispru- 
dence from the case of our first parents to 
our own case. Let us compare our lives 
with the law of God, and we shall find that 
our sins are past reckoning. Let us take 
account of the habitual posture of our souls, 
■as a posture of dislike for the things that 
are above, and we shall find that our 
thoughts and our desires are ever running 
in one current of sinfulness. Let us just 
make the computation how often we fail in 
the bidden charity, and the bidden godli- 
ness, and the bidden long suffering—all as 
clearly bidden as the duty that was laid on 
our first parents — and we shall find, that we 
are borne down under a mountain of ini- 
quity; that, in the language of the Psalmist, 
our transgressions have gone over our 
heads, and, as a heavy burden, are too 
heavy for us; and if we be indeed under 
the government of Him who followed up 
the offence of the stolen apple by so dread- 
ful a chastisement, then is wrath gone out 
unto the uttermost against every one of us. 
— There is something in the history of that 
apple which might be brought specially to 
bear on the case of those small sinners who 
practise in secret at the work of their petty 
depredations. But it also carries in it a 
great and a universal moral. It tells us that 
no sin is small. It serves a general purpose 
of conviction. It holds out a most alarming 
disclosure of the charge that is against us ; 
and makes it manifest to the conscience of 



him who is awakened thereby, that, unless 
God himself point out a way of escape, we 
are indeed most hopelessly sunk in con- 
demnation. And, seeing that such wrath 
went out from the sanctuary of this un- 
changeable God, on the one offence of our 
first parents, it irresistibly follows, that if 
we, manifold in guilt, take not ourselves to 
his appointed way of reconciliation — if we 
refuse the overtures of Him, who then so 
visited the one offence through which all 
are dead, but is now laying before us all 
that free gift, which is of many offences 
unto justification — in other words, if we 
will not enter into peace through the of- 
fered Mediator, how much greater must be 
the wrath that abideth on us ? 

Now, let the sinner have his conscience 
schooled by such a contemplation, and 
there will be no rest whatever for his soul 
till he find it in the Saviour. Let him only 
learn, from the dealings of God with the 
first Adam, what a God of holiness he him- 
self has to deal with ; and let him further 
learn, from the history of the second Adam, 
that to manifest himself as a God of love, 
another righteousness had to be brought in, 
in place of that from which man had fallen 
so utterly away. There was a faultless 
obedience rendered by Him, of whom it is 
said, that he fulfilled all righteousness. 
There was a magnifying of the law by one 
in human form, who up to the last jot and 
tittle of it, acquitted himself of all its obli- 
gations. There was a pure, and lofty, and 
undefiled path, trodden by a holy and 
harmless Being, who gave not up his work 
upon earth, till ere he left it, he could cry 
out, that it was finished; and so had 
wrought out for us a perfect righteousness. 
Now, it forms the most prominent annun- 
ciation of the New Testament, that the re- 
ward of this righteousness is offered unto 
all — so that there is not one of us who is 
not put by the gospel upon the alternative 
of being either tried by our own merits, or 
treated according to the merits of Him who 
became sin for us, though he knew no sin, 
that we might be made the righteousness 
of God in him. Let the sinner just look 
unto himself, and look unto the Saviour. 
Let him advert not to his one, but to his 
many offences ; and that, too, in the sight 
of a God, who, but for one so slight and so 
insignificant in respect of the outward de- 
scription, as the eating of a forbidden ap- 
ple, threw off a world into banishment, and 
entailed a sentence of death upon all its 
generations. Let him learn from this, that 
for sin, even in its humblest degrees, there 
exists in the bosom of the Godhead no 
toleration; and how shall he dare, with the 
degree and the frequency of his own sin, 
to stand any longer on a ground, where, if 
he remain, the fierceness of a consuming 
fire is so sure to overtake him? The righ 



IV.] 



ESTIMATION OF THE GUILT OF DISHONESTY. 



255 



teousness of Christ is without a flaw, and 
there he is invited to take shelter. Under 
the actual regimen, which God has esta- 
blished in our world, it is indeed his only 
security — his refuge from the tempest, and 
hiding place from the storm. The only 
beloved Son offers to spread his own un- 
spotted garment as a protection over him ; 
and, if he be rightly alive to the utter na- 
kedness of his moral and spiritual condition 
he will indeed make no tarrying till he be 
found in Christ, and find that in him there 
is no condemnation. 

Now, it is worthy of remark, that those 
principles, which shut a man up unto the 
faith, do not take flight and abandon him, 
after they have served this temporary pur- 
pose. They abide with him, and work 
their appropriate influence on his charac- 
ter, and serve as the germ of a new moral 
creation ; and we can afterwards detect 
their operation in his heart and life ; so, that 
if they were present at the formation of a 
saving belief, they are not less unfailingly 
present with every true Christian, through- 
out the whole of his future history, as the 
elements of a renovated conduct. If it was 
sensibility to the evil of sin which helped 
to wean the man from himself, and led him 
to his Saviour, this sensibility does not fall 
asleep in the bosom of an awakened sinner, 
after Christ has given him light — but it 
grows with the growth, and strengthens 
with the strength, of his Christianity. If, 
at the interesting period of his transition 
from nature to grace, he saw, even in the 
very least of his offences, a deadly provo- 
cation of the Lawgiver, he does not lose 
sight of this consideration in his future pro- 
gress — nor does it barely remain with him, 
like one of the unproductive notions of an 
inert and unproductive theory. It gives 
rise to a fearful jealousy in his heart of the 
least appearance of evil : and, with every 
man who has undergone a genuine process 
of conversion, do we behold the scrupulous 
avoidance of sin, in its most slender, as well 
as in its more aggravated forms. If it was 
the perfection of the character of Christ, 
who. felt that it became him to fulfil all 
righteousness, that offered him the first 
solid foundation on which he could lean — 
then, the same character, which first drew 
his eye for the purpose of confidence, still 
continues to draw his eye for the purpose 
of imitation. At the outset of faith, all the 
essential moralities of thought, and feeling, 
and conviction, are in play; nor is there 
any thing in the progress of a real faith 
which is calculated to throw them back 
again into the dormancy out of which they 
had arisen. They break out, in fact, into 
more full and flourishing display on every 
new creature, with every new step, and new 
evolution, in his mental history. All the 
principles of the gospel serve, as it were, to 



fan and to perpetuate his hostility against 
sin; and all the powers of the gospel enable 
him, more and more, to fulfil the desires of 
his heart, and to carry his purposes of hos- 
tility into execution. In the case of every 
genuine believer, who walks not after the 
flesh, but after the spirit, do we behold a 
fulfilling of the righteousness of the law — a 
strenuous avoidance of sin, in its slightest 
possible taint or modification — a strenuous 
performance of duty, up to the last jot and 
tittle of its exactions — so, that let the un- 
true professors of the faith do what they 
will in the way of antinomianism, and let 
the enemies of the faith say what they will 
about our antinomianism, the real spirit of 
the dispensation under which we live is 
such, that whosoever shall break one of the 
least of these commandments, and teach 
men so, is accounted the least — whosoever 
shall do and teach them is accounted the 
greatest. 

2. Let us, therefore, urge the spirit and 
the practice of this lesson upon your obser- 
vation. The place for the practice of it 
is the familiar and week-day scene. The 
principle for the spirit of it descends upon 
the heart, from the sublimest heights of 
the sanctuary of God. It is not vulgarizing 
Christianity to bring it down to the very 
humblest occupations of human life. It is, 
in fact, dignifying human life, by bringing 
it up to the level of Christianity. 

It may look to some a degradation of the 
pulpit, when the household servant is told 
to make her firm stand against the temp- 
tation of open doors, and secret opportuni- 
ties; or w T hen the confidential agent is told 
to resist the slightest inclination to any un- 
seen freedom with the property of his em- 
ployers, or to any undiscoverable excess in 
the charges of his management ; or when 
the receiver of a humble payment is told, 
that the tribute which is due on every writ- 
ten acknowledgment ought faithfully to be 
met, and not fictitiously to be evaded. This 
is not robbing religion of its sacredness, but 
spreading its sacredness over the face of 
society. It is evangelizing human life, by 
impregnating its minutest transactions with 
the spirit of the gospel. It is strengthening 
the wall of partition between sin and obe- 
dience. It is the teacher of righteousness 
taking his stand at the outpost of that ter- 
ritory which he is appointed to defend, 
and warning his hearers of the danger that 
lies in a single footstep of encroachment. It 
is letting them know, that it is in the act of 
stepping over the limit, that the sinner 
throws the gauntlet of his defiance against 
the authority of God. And though he may 
deceive himself with the imagination that 
his soul is safe, because the gain of his in- 
justice is small, such is the God with whom 
he has to do, that, if it be gain to the value 
of a single apple, then, within the compass 



256 



ESTIMATION OF THE GUILT OF DISHONESTY. 



of so small an outward dimension, may as 
much guilt be enclosed as that which hath 
brought death into our world, and carried it 
down in a descending ruin upon all its 
generations. 

It may appear a very little thing, when 
you are told to be honest in little matters ; 
when the servant is told to keep her hand 
from every one article about which there is 
not an express or understood allowance on 
the part of her superiors ; when the dealer 
is told to lop off the excesses of that minuter 
fraudulency, which is so currently prac- 
tised in the humble walks of merchandise ; 
when the workman is told to abstain from 
those petty reservations of the material of 
his work, for which he is said to have such 
snug and ample opportunity ; and when, 
without pronouncing on the actual extent 
of these transgressions, all are told to be 
faithful in that which is least, else, if there 
be truth in our text, they incur the guilt of 
being unfaithful in much. It maybe thought, 
that because such dishonesties as these are 
scarcely noticeable, they are therefore not 
worthy of notice. But it is just in the pro- 
portion of their being unnoticeable by the 
human eye, that it is religious to refrain 
from them. These are the cases in which it 
will be seen, whether the controul of the 
omniscience of God makes up for the con- 
troul of human observation — in which the 
sentiment, that thou God seest me, should 
carry a preponderance through all the secret 
places of a man's history — in which, when 
every earthly check of an earthly morality 
is withdrawn, it should be felt, that the eye 
of God is upon him, and that the judgment 
of God is in reserve for him. To him who 
is gifted with a true discernment of these 
matters, will it appear, that often, in propor- 
tion to the smallness of the doings, is the 
sacredness of that principle which causes 
them to be done with integrity; that honesty, 
in little transactions, bears upon it more of 
the aspect of holiness, than honesty in great 
ones ; that the man of deepest sensibility to 
the obligations of the law, is he who feels 
the quickening of moral alarm at its slightest 
violations; that, in the morality of grains 
and of scruples, there may be a greater ten- 
derness of conscience, and a more heaven- 
born sanctity, than in that larger morality 
which flashes broadly and observably upon 
the world ; — and that thus, in the faithful- 
ness of the household maid, or of the ap- 
prentice boy, there may be the presence of 
a truer principle than there is in the more 
conspicuous transactions of human business 
— what they do, being done, not with eye- 
service — what they do, being done unto the 
Lord. 

And here we may remark, that nobleness 
of condition is not essential as a school for 
nobleness of character ; nor does man require 
to be high in office, ere he can gather around 



his person the worth and the lustre of a high 
minded integrity. It is delightful to think, 
that humble life may be just as rich in moral 
grace, and moral grandeur, as the loftier 
places of society ; that as true a dignity of 
principle may be earned by him who in 
homeliest drudgery, plies his conscientious 
task, as by him who stands entrusted with 
the fortunes of an empire ; that the poorest 
menial in the land, who can lift a hand un- 
soiled by the pilfer ments that are within his 
reach, may have achieved a victory over 
temptation, to the full as honourable as the 
proudest patriot can boast, who has spurned 
the bribery of courts away from him. It is 
cheering to know, from the heavenly judge 
himself, that he who is faithful in the least, is 
faithful also in much ; and that thus, among 
the labours of the field and of the work-shop, 
it is possible for the peasant to be as bright 
in honour as the peer, and have the chivalry 
of as much truth and virtue to adorn him. 

And, as this lesson is not little in respect 
of principle,* so neither is it little in respect 
of influence on the order and well-being of 
human society. He who is unjust in the 
least, is, in respect of guilt, unjust also in 
much. And to reverse this proposition, as it 
is done in the first clause of our text— he 
who is faithful in that which is least, is, in 
respect both of righteous principle and of 
actual observation, faithful also in much. 
Who is the man to whom I would most 
readily confide the whole of my property ? 
He who would most disdain to put forth an 
injurious hand on a single farthing of it. 
Who is the man from whom I would have 
the least dread of any unrighteous encroach- 
ment ? He, all the delicacies of whose prin- 
ciple are awakened, when he comes within 
sight of the limit which separates the region 
of justice from the region of injustice. Who 
is the man whom we shall never find among 
the greater degrees of iniquity ? He who 
shrinks with sacred abhorrence from the 
lesser degrees of it. It is a true, though a 
homely maxim of economy, that if we take 
care of our small sums, our great sums will 
take care of themselves. And, to pass from 
our own things to the things of others, it is 
no less true, that if principle should lead us 
all to maintain the care of strictest honesty 
over our neighbour's pennies, then will his 
pounds lie secure from the grasp of injustice, 
behind the barrier of a moral impossibility. 
This lesson, if carried into effect among you, 
would so strengthen all the ramparts of se- 
curity between man and man, as to make 
them utterly impassable; and therefore, 
while, in the matter of it, it may look, in 
one view, as one of the least of the com- 
mandments, it, in regard both of principle 
and effect, is, in another view of it, one of 
the greatest of the commandments. And we 
therefore conclude with assuring you, that 
nothing will spread the principle of this 



IV.] 



ON THE GREAT CHRISTIAN LAW 



OF RECIPROCITY BETWEEN MEN. 



257 



commandment to any great extent through- 
out the mass of society, but the principle of 
godliness. Nothing will secure the general 
observation of justice amongst us, in its 
punctuality and in its preciseness, but such 
a precise Christianity as many affirm to be 
puritanical. In other words, the virtues of 
society, to be kept in a healthful and pros- 
perous condition, must be upheld by the 
virtues of the sanctuary. Human law may 
restrain many of the grosser violations. But 
without religion among the people, justice 
will never be in extensive operation as a 
moral principle. A vast proportion of the 
species will be as unjust as the vigilance and 
the severities of law allow them to be. A 
thousand petty dishonesties, which never 



will, and never can be brought within the 
cognizance of any of our courts of adminis- 
tration, will still continue to derange the 
business of human life, and to stir up all the 
heartburnings of suspicion and resentment 
among the members of human society. And 
it is, indeed, a triumphant reversion await- 
ing the Christianity of the New Testament, 
when it shall become manifest as day, that 
it is her doctrine alone, which, by its search- 
ing and sanctifying influence, can so moral- 
ize our world — as that each may sleep secure 
in the lap of his neighbour's integrity, and 
charm of confidence, between man and man, 
will at length be felt in the business of 
every town, and in the bosom of every 
family. 



DISCOURSE V. 
On the great Christian Law of Reciprocity between Man and Man. 

(< Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them : for this is 
the law and the prophets." — Matthew vii. 12. 



There are two great classes in human 
society, between whom /there lie certain 
mutual claims and obligations, which are 
felt by some to be of very difficult adjust- 
ment. There are those who have requests 
of some kind or other to make; and there 
are those to whom the requests are made, 
and with whom there is lodged the power 
either to grant or to refuse them. Now, at 
first sight, it would appear, that the firm 
exercise of this power of refusal is the only 
barrier by which the latter class can be se- 
cured against the indefinite encroachments 
of the former ; and that, if this were remov- 
ed, all the safeguards of right and property 
would be removed along with it. The power 
of refusal, on the part of those who have 
the right of refusal, may be abolished by an 
act of violence, on the part of those who 
have it not ; and then, when this happens 
in individual cases, we have the crimes of 
assault and robbery ; and when it happens 
on a more extended scale, we have anarchy 
and insurrection in the land. Or the power 
of refusal may be taken away by an au- 
thoritative precept of religion; and then 
might it still be matter of apprehension, lest 
our only defence against the inroads of 
selfishness and injustice were as good as 
given up, and lest the peace and interest of 
families should be laid open to a most fearful 
exposure, by the enactments of a romantic 
and impracticable system. Whenever this 
is apprehended, the temptation is strongly 
*elt, either to rid ourselves of the enactments 
altogether, or at least to bring them down 
2K 



in nearer accommodation to the feelings and 
the conveniences of men. 

And Christianity, on the very first blush 
of it, appears to be precisely such a religion. 
It seems to take away all lawfulness of re- 
sistance from the possessor, and to invest 
the demander with such an extent of privi- 
lege, as would make the two classes of so- 
ciety, to which we have just now adverted, 
speedily change places. And this is the true 
secret of the many laborious deviations that 
have been attempted in this branch of mo- 
rality, on the obvious meaning of the New 
Testament. This is the secret of those many 
qualifying clauses, by which its most lumin- 
ous announcements have been beset, to the 
utter darkening of them. This it is which 
explains the many sad invasions that have 
been made on the most manifest and un- 
deniable literalities of the law and of the 
testimony. And our present text, among 
others, has received its full share of mutila- 
tion, and of what may be called " dressing 
up," from the hands of commentators — it 
having wakened the very alarms of which 
we have just spoken, and called forth the 
very attempts to quiet and to subdue them. 
Surely, it has been said, we can never be 
required to do unto others what they have 
no right, and no reason, to expect from us. 
The demand must not be an extravagant 
one. It must lie within the limits of modera- 
tion. It must be such as, in the estimation 
of every justly thinking person, is counted 
fair in the circumstances of the case. The 
principle on which our Saviour, in the text, 



258 ON THE GREAT CHRISTIAN LAW OF RECIPROCITY BETWEEN MEN. [DISC. 



rests the obligation of doing any particular 
thing to others, is, that we wish others to 
do that thing unto us. But this is too much 
for an affrighted selfishness ; and, for her 
own protection, she would put forth a de- 
fensive sophistry upon the subject; and in 
place of that distinctly announced principle, 
on which the Bible both directs and specifies 
what the things are which we should do 
unto others, does she substitute another 
principle entirely — which is, merely to do 
unto others such things as are fair, and right, 
and reasonable. 

Now, there is one clause of this verse 
which would appear to lay a positive inter- 
dict on all these qualifications. How shall 
we dispose of a phrase, so sweeping and 
universal in its import, as that of " all things 
whatsoever?" We cannot think that such 
an expression as this was inserted for no- 
thing, by him who has told us, that " cursed 
is every one who taketh away from the 
words of this book." There is no distinction 
laid down between things fair, and things un- 
fair — between things reasonable, and things 
unreasonable. Both are comprehended in 
the " all things whatsoever." The significa- 
tion is plain and absolute, that, let the thing 
be what it may, if you wish others to do 
that thing for you, it lies imperatively upon 
you to do the very same thing for them also. 

But, at this rate, you may think that the 
whole s}^stem of human intercourse would 
go into unhingement. You may wish your 
next-door neighbour to present you with 
half his fortune. In this case, we know not 
how you are to escape from the conclusion, 
that you are bound to present him with the 
half of yours. Or you may wish a relative 
to burden himself with the expenses of all 
your family. It is then impossible to save 
you from the positive obligation, i*" you are 
equally able for it, of doing the same ser- 
vice to the family of another. Or you may 
wish to engross the whole time of an ac- 
quaintance in personal attendance upon 
yourself. Then, it is just your part to do the 
same extent of civility to another who may 
desire it. These are only a few specifica- 
tions, out of the manifold varieties, whether 
of service or of donation, which are con- 
ceivable between one man and another ; nor 
are we aware of any artifice of explanation 
by which they can possibly be detached 
from the "all things whatsoever" of the 
verse before us. These are the literalities 
which we are not at liberty to compromise 
— but are bound to urge, and that simply, 
according to the terms in which they have 
been conveyed to us by the great Teacher 
of righteousness. This may raise a sensitive 
dread in many a bosom. It may look like 
the opening of a floodgate, through which 
a torrent of human rapacity would be made 
to set in on the fair and measured domains 
of property, and by which all the fences of 



legality would be overthrown. It is some 
such fearful anticipation as this which causes 
casuistry to ply its wily expedients, and 
busily to devise its many limits, and its 
many exceptions, to the morality of the 
New Testament. And yet, we think it pos- 
sible to demonstrate of our text, that no such 
modifying is requisite ; and that, though ad- 
mitted strictly and rigorously as the rule of 
our daily conduct, it would lead to no prac- 
tical conclusions which are at all formidable. 

For, what is the precise circumstance 
which lays the obligation of this precept 
upon you ? There may be other places in 
the Bible where you are required to do 
things for the benefit of your neighbour, 
whether you would wish your neighbour to 
do these things for your benefit or not. But 
this is not the requirement here. There is 
none other thing laid upon you in this 
place, than that you should do that good 
action in behalf of another, which you 
would like that other to do in behalf of 
yourself. If you would not like him to do 
it for you, then there is nothing in the com 
pass of this sentence now before you, that 
at all obligates you to do it for him. If 
you would not like your neighbour to make 
so romantic a surrender to your interest, as 
to offer you to the extent of half his fortune, 
then there is nothing in that part of the gos- 
pel code which now engages us, that ren- 
ders it imperative upon you to make the 
same offer to your neighbour. If you would 
positively recoil, in all the reluctance of in- 
genuous delicacy, from the selfishness of 
laying on a relation the burden of the ex- 
penses of all your family, then this is not 
the good office that you would have him to 
do unto you ; and this, therefore, is not the 
good office which the text prescribes you to 
do unto him. If you have such considera- 
tion for another's ease, and another's con- 
venience, that you could not take the un- 
generous advantage of so much of his time 
for your accommodation, there may be 
other verses in the Bible which point to a 
greater sacrifice, on your part, for the good 
of others, than you would like these others 
to make for yours; but, most assuredly, 
this is not the verse which imposes that 
sacrifice. If you w T ould not that others 
should do these things on your account, 
then these things form no part of the " all 
things whatsoever" you would that men 
should do unto you ; and, therefore, they 
form no part of the " all things whatsoever" 
that you are required, by this verse, to do 
unto them. The bare circumstance of your 
positively not wishing that any such ser- 
vices should be rendered unto you, exempts 
you, as far as the single authority of this 
precept is concerned, from the obligation of 
rendering these services to others. This is 
the limitation to the extent of those services 
which are called for in the text ; and it is 



V."J ON THE GREAT CHRISTIAN LAW < 

surely better, that every limitation to a 
commandment of God's, should be defined 
by God himself, than that it should be 
drawn from the assumptions of human fan- 
cy, or from the fears and the feelings of 
human convenience. 

Let a man, in fact, give himself up to a 
strict and literal observance of the precept 
in this verse, and it will impress a two-fold 
direction upon him. It will not only guide 
him to certain performances of good in be- 
half of others, out it will guide him to the 
regulation of his own desires of good from 
them. For his desires of good from others 
are here set up as the measure of his per- 
formances of good to others. The more 
selfish and unbounded his desires are, the 
larger are those performances with the ob- 
ligation of which he is burdened. What- 
soever he would that others should do unto 
him, he is bound to do unto them ; and, 
therefore, the more he gives way to unge- 
nerous and extravagant wishes of service 
from those who are around him, the hea- 
vier and more insupportable is the load of 
duty which he brings upon himself. — The 
commandment is quite imperative, and 
there is no escaping from it ; and if he, by 
the excess of his selfishness, should render 
it impracticable, then the whole punishment 
due to the guilt of casting aside the autho- 
rity of this commandment, follows in that 
train of punishment which is annexed to 
selfishness. There is one way of being re- 
lieved from such a burden. There is one 
way of reducing this verse to a moderate 
and practicable requirement; and that is, 
just to give up selfishness— just to stifle all 
ungenerous desires — just to moderate every 
wish of service or liberality from others, 
down to the standard of what is right and 
equitable; and then there may be other 
verses in the Bible by which we are called 
to be kind even to the evil and the unthank- 
ful. But, most assuredly, this verse lays 
upon us none other thing, than that we 
should do such services for others as are 
right and equitable. 

The more extravagant, then, a man's 
wishes of accommodation from others are, 
the wider is the distance between him and 
the bidden performances of our text. The 
separation of him from his duty, increases 
at the rate of two bodies receding from each 
other by equal and contrary movements. 
The more selfish his desires of service are 
from others, the more feeble, on that very 
account, will be his desires of making any 
surrender of himself to them, and yet the 
greater is the amount of that surrender 
which is due. The poor man, in fact, is 
moving himself away from the rule ; and 
the rule is just moving as fast away from 
the man. As he sinks, in the scale of sel- 
fishness, beneath the point of a fair and 
moderate expectation from others, does the 



OF RECIPROCITY BETWEEN MEN. 259 

rule rise, in the scale of duty, with its de- 
mands upon him ; and thus there is render- 
ing to him double for every unfair and un- 
generous imposition that he would make 
on the kindness of those who are around 
him. 

Now, there is one way, and a very effec- 
tual one, of getting these two ends to meet. 
Moderate your own desires of service from 
others, and you will moderate, in the same 
degree, all those duties of service to others 
which are measured by these desires. Have 
the delicacy to abstain from any wish of 
encroachment on the convenience or pro- 
perty of another. Have the high-minded- 
ness to be indebted for your own support 
to the exertions of your own honourable 
industry, rather than the dastardly habit of 
preying on the simplicity of those around 
you. Have such a keen sense of equity, 
and such a fine tone of independent feeling, 
that you could not bear to be the cause of 
hardship or distress to a single human 
creature, if you could help it. Let the 
same spirit be in you, which the Apostle 
wanted to exemplify before the eye of his 
disciples, when he coveted no man's gold, 
or silver, or apparel ; when he laboured not 
to be chargeable to any of them; but 
wrought with his own hands, rather than 
be burdensome. Let this mind be in you, 
which was also in the Apostle of the Gen- 
tiles ; and, then, the text before us will not 
come near you with a single oppressive or 
impracticable requirement. There may be 
other passages, where you are called to go 
beyond the strict line of justice, or common 
humanity, in behalf of your suffering bre- 
thren. But this passage does not touch 
you with any such preceptive imposition : 
and you. by moderating your wishes from 
others down to what is fair and equitable, 
do, in fact, reduce the rule which binds you 
to act according to the measure of these 
wishes, down to a rule of precise and unde- 
viating equity. 

The operation is somewhat, like that of a 
governor or fly, in mechanism. This is a 
very happy contrivance, by which all that 
is defective or excessive in the motion, is 
confined within the limits of equability ; 
and every tendency, in particular, to any 
mischievous acceleration, is restrained. 
The impulse given by this verse to the con- 
duct of man among his fellows, would seem, 
to a superficial observer, to carry him to all 
the excesses of a most ruinous and quixotic 
benevolence. But let him only look to the 
skilful adaptation of the fly. Just suppose 
the control of moderation and equity to be 
laid upon his own wishes, and there is not 
a single impulse given to his conduct be- 
yond the rate of moderation and equity. 
You are not required here to do all things 
whatsoever in behalf of others, but to do all 
things whatsoever for them, that you would 



260 ON THE GREAT CHRISTIAN LAW OF RECIPROCITY BETWEEN MEN. [DISC. 



should be done unto yourself. This is the 
check by which the whole of the bidden 
movement is governed, and kept from rim- 
ing out into any hurtful excess. And such 
is the beautiful operation of that piece of 
moral mechanism that we are now employ- 
ed in contemplating, that while it keeps 
down all the aspirations of selfishness, it 
does, in fact, restrain every extravagancy, 
and impress on its obedient subjects no 
other movement, than that of an even and 
inflexible justice. 

This rule of our Saviour's, then, pre- 
scribes moderation to our desires of good 
from others, as well as generosity to our 
doings in behalf of others ; and makes the 
first the measure of obligation to the se- 
cond. It may thus be seen how easily, in 
a Christian society, the whole work of be- 
nevolence could be adjusted, so as to render 
it possible for the givers not only to meet, 
but also to overpass, the wishes and expec- 
tations of the receivers. The rich man 
may have a heavier obligation laid upon 
him by other precepts of the New-Testa- 
ment ; but, by this precept, he is not bound 
to do more for the poor man, than what he 
himself would wish, in like circumstances, 
to be done for him. And let the poor man, 
on the other hand, wish for no more than 
what a Christian ought to wish for ; let him 
work and endure to the extent of nature's 
sufferance, rather than beg — and only beg, 
rather than that he should starve ; and in 
such a state of principle among men, a tide 
of beneficence would so go forth upon all 
the vacant places in society, as that there 
should be no room to receive it. The duty 
of the rich, as connected with this adminis- 
tration, is of so direct and positive a charac- 
ter, as to obtrude itself at once on the notice 
of the Christian moralist. But the poor 
also have a duty in it — to which we feel 
ourselves directed by the train of argument 
which we have now been prosecuting — and 
a duty, too, we think, of far greater impor- 
tance even than the other, to the best inte- 
rests of mankind. 

For, let us first contrast the rich man 
who is ungenerous in his doings, with the 
poor man who is ungenerous in his desires ; 
and see from which of the two it is, that 
the cause of charity receives the deadlier 
infliction. There is, it must be admitted, 
an individual to be met with occasionally, 
who represents the former of these two 
characters ; with every affection gravitating 
to itself, and to its sordid gratifications and 
interests ; bent on his own pleasure, or his 
own avarice — and so engrossed with these, 
as to have no spare feeling at all for the 
brethren of his common nature; with a 
heart obstinately shut against that most 
powerful of applications, the look of genuine 
and imploring distress— and whose very 
countenance speaks a surly and determined 



exclusion on every call that proceeds from 
it; who in a tumult of perpetual alarm 
about new cases, and new tales of suffering, 
and new plans of philanthropy, has at 
length learned to resist and to resent every 
one of them; and, spurning the whole of 
this disturbance impatiently away, to main- 
tain a firm defensive over the close system 
of his own selfish luxuries, and his own 
snug accommodations. Such a man keeps 
back, it must be allowed, from the cause of 
charity, w T hat he ought to have rendered it 
in his own person. There is a diminution 
of the philanthropic fund up to the extent 
of what benevolence wxmld have awarded 
out of his individual means, and individual 
opportunities. The good cause is a sufferer^ 
not by any positive blow it has sustained, 
but the simple negation of one friendly and 
fostering hand, that else might have been 
stretched forth to aid and patronise it. 
There is only so much less of direct coun- 
tenance and support than would otherwise 
have been ; for, in this our age, we have no 
conception whatever of such an example 
being at all infectious. For a man to wal- 
low in prosperity himself and be unmindful 
of the wretchedness that is around him, is 
an exhibition of altogether so ungainly a 
character, that it will far oftener provoke 
an observer to affront it by the contrast of 
his own generosity, than to render it the 
approving testimony of his imitation. So 
that all we have lost by the man who is 
ungenerous in his doings, is his own con- 
tribution to the cause of philanthropy. And 
it is a loss that can be borne. The cause 
of this world's beneficence can do abun- 
dantly without him. There is a ground 
that is yet unbroken, and there are resources 
which are still unexplored, that will yield a 
far more substantial produce to the good of 
humanity, than he, and thousands as weal- 
thy as he, could render to it out of all their 
capabilities. 

But there is a far wider mischief inflicted 
on the cause of charity, by the poor man 
who is ungenerous in his desires; by him, 
whom every act of kindness is sure to call 
out to the reaction of some new demand, or 
new expectation; by him, on whom the 
hand of a giver has the effect, not of ap- 
peasing his wants, but of inflaming his ra- 
pacity; by him who, trading among the 
sympathies of the credulous, can dexterous- 
ly appropriate for himself a portion tenfold 
greater than what -would have blest and 
brightened the aspect of many a deserving 
family. Him w r e denounce as the worst 
enemy of the poor. It is he whose ravenous 
gripe wrests from them a far more abun- 
dant benefaction, than is done by the most 
lordly and unfeeling proprietor in the land. 
He is the arch-oppressor of his brethren ; 
and the amount of the robbery which he 
has practised upon them, is not to be esti- 



V.] ON THE GREAT CHRISTIAN LAW 

mated by the alms which he has monopo- 
lized, by the food, or the raiment, or the 
money, which he has diverted to himself, 
from the more modest sufferers around him, 
he has done what is infinitely worse than 
turning aside the stream of charity. He 
has closed its floodgates. He has chilled 
and alienated the hearts of the wealth} 7 , by 
the gall of bitterness which he has infused 
into this whole ministration. 

A few such harpies would suffice to exile 
a whole neighbourhood from the attentions 
of the benevolent, by the distrust and the 
jealousy wherewith they have poisoned 
their bosoms, and laid an arrest on all the 
sensibilities that else would have flowed 
from them. It is he who, ever on the 
watch and on the wing about some enter- 
prize of imposture, makes it his business to 
work and to prey on the compassionate 
principles of our nature ; it is he who, in 
effect, grinds the faces of the poor, and that, 
with deadlier severity than even is done by 
the great baronial tyrant, the battlements of 
whose casile seem to frown, in all the pride 
of aristocracy, on the territory that is be- 
fore it. There is, at all times, a kindliness 
of feeling ready to stream forth, with a ten- 
fold greater liberality than ever, on the 
humble orders of life ; and it is he, and such 
as he, who have congealed it. He has 
raised a jaundiced medium between the 
rich and the poor, in virtue of which, the 
former eye the latter with suspicion ; and 
there is not a man who wears the garb, and 
prefers the applications of poverty, that has 
not suffered from the worthless impostor 
who has gone before him. They are, in 
fact, the deceit, and the indolence, and the 
low sordidness of a few who have made 
outcasts of the many, and locked against 
them the feelings of the wealthy in a kind 
of iron imprisonment. The rich man who 
is ungenerous in his doings, keeps back one 
labourer from the field of charity. But a 
poor man who is ungenerous in his desires, 
can expel a thousand labourers in disgust 
away from it. He sheds a cruel and ex- 
tended blight over the fair region of phi- 
lanthropy ; and many have abandoned it, 
who, but for him, would fondly have lin- 
gered thereupon ; very many, who, but for 
the way in which their simplicity has been 
tried and trampled upon, would still have 
tasted the luxury of doing good unto the 
poor, and made it their delight, as well as 
their duty, to expend and expatiate among 
their habitations. 

We say not this to exculpate the rich ; 
for it is their part not to be weary in well- 
doing, but to prosecute the work and the 
labour of love under every discouragement. 
Neither do we say this to the disparage- 
ment of the poor ; for the picture we have 
given is of the few out of the many ; and 
the closer the acquaintance with humble 



OF RECIPROCITY BETWEEN 7>IEN. 281 

life becomes, will it be the more seen of 
what a high pitch of generosity even the 
very poorest are capable. They, in truth, 
though perhaps they are not aware of it, 
can contribute more to the cause of charity, 
I by the moderation of their desires, than the 
rich can by the generosity of their doings. 
They, without, it may be, one penny to be- 
stow, might obtain a place in the record of 
heaven, as the most liberal benefactors of 
their species. There is nothing in the hum- 
ble condition of life they occupy, which 
precludes them from all that is great or 
graceful in human charity. There is a way 
in which they may equal, and even out- 
peer, the wealthiest of the land, in that very 
virtue of which wealth alone has been con- 
ceived to have the exclusive inheritance. 
There is a pervading character in humanity 
which the varieties of rank do not oblite- 
rate ; and as, in virtue of the common cor- 
ruption, the poor man may be as effectually 
the rapacious despoiler of his brethren, as 
the man of opulence above him — so, there 
is a common excellence attainable by both ; 
and through which, the poor man may, to 
the full, be as splendid in generosity as the 
rich, and yield a far more important contri- 
bution to the peace and comfort of society. 

To make this plain — it is in virtue of a 
generous doing on the part of a rich man, 
when a sum of money is offered for the re- 
lief of want; and it is in virtue of a gene- 
rous desire on the part of a poor man, when 
this money is refused ; when, with the feel- 
ing, that his necessities do not just warrant 
him to be yet a burden upon others, he de- 
clines to touch the offered liberality; when, 
with a delicate recoil from the unlooked-for 
proposal, he still resolves to put it for the 
present away, and to find, if possible, for 
himself a little longer; when, standing on 
the very margin of dependence, he would 
yet like to struggle with the difficulties of 
his situation, and to maintain this severe 
but honourable conflict, till hard necessity 
should force him to surrender. Let the mo- 
ney which he has thus nobly shifted from 
himself take some new direction to another ; 
and who, we ask, is the giver of it ? The 
first and most obvious reply is, that it is he 
who owned it : but, it is still more empha- 
tically true, that it is he who has declined 
it. It came originally out of the rich man's 
abundance: but it w T as the noble-hearted 
generosity of the poor man that handed it 
onwards to its final destination. He did 
not emanate the gift ; but it is just as much 
that he has not absorbed it, but left it to 
find its full conveyance to some neighbour 
poorer than himself, to some family still 
more friendless and destitute than his own. 
It was given the first time out of an over- 
flowing fulness. It is given the second time 
out of stinted and self-denying penury. In 
the world's eye, it is the proprietor who be- 



282 ON THE GREAT CHRISTIAN LAW OF RECIPROCITY BETWEEN MEN. [DISC. 



stowed the charity. But, in heaven's eye, 
the poor man who waived it away from 
himself to another is the more illustrious 
philanthropist of the two. The one gave it 
out of his affluence. The other gave it out 
of the sweat of his brow. He rose up early, 
and sat up late, that he might have it to be- 
stow on a poorer than himself ; and without 
once stretching forth a giver's hand to the 
necessities of his brethren, still is it possi- 
ble, that by him, and such as him, may the 
main burden of this world's benevolence be 
borne. 

It need scarcely be remarked, that, with- 
out supposing the offer of any sum made to 
a poor man who is generous in his desires, 
he, by simply keeping himself back from 
the distributions of charity, fulfils all the 
high functions which we have now ascribed 
to him. He leaves the charitable fund un- 
touched for all that distress which is more 
clamorous than his own ; and we, therefore, 
look, not to the original givers of the mo- 
ney, but to those who line, as it were, the 
margin of pauperism, and yet firmly refuse 
to enter it — we look upon them as the pre- 
eminent benefactors of society, who narrow, 
as it were, by a wall of defence, the ground 
of human dependence, and are, in fact, the 
guides and the guardians of all that opu- 
lence can bestow. 

Thus it is, that when Christianity becomes 
universal, the doings of the one party, and the 
desires of the other, will meet and overpass. 
The poor will wish for no more than the 
rich will be delighted to bestow ; and the 
rule of our text, which every real Christian 
at present finds so practicable, will, when 
carried over the face of society, bind all the 
members of it into one consenting brother- 
hood. The duty of doing good to others 
will then coalesce with that counterpart 
duty which regulates our desires of good 
from them ; and the work of benevolence 
will, at length, be prosecuted without that 
alloy of rapacity on the one hand, and dis- 
trust on the other, which serves so much 
to fester and disturb the whole of this minis- 
tration. To complete this adjustment, it is 
in every way as necessary to lay all the in- 
umbent moralities on those who ask, as on 
those who confer ; and never till the whole 
text, which comprehends the wishes of man 
as well as his actions, wield its entire au- 
thority over the species, will the disgusts 
and the prejudices, which form such a bar- 
rier between the ranks of human life, be ef- 
fectually done away. It is not by the abo- 
lition of rank, but by assigning to each rank 
its duties, that peace, and friendship, and 
order, will at length be firmly established 
in our world. It is by the force of princi- 
ple, and not by the force of some great po- 
litical overthrow, that a consummation so 
delightful is to be attained. We have no 
■conception whatever, that, even in millennial 



days, the diversities of wealth and station 
will at length be equalized. On looking for- 
ward to the time when kings shall be the 
nursing fathers, and queens the nursing 
mothers of our church, we think that we 
can behold the perspective of as varied a 
distribution of place and property as before. 
In the pilgrimage of life, there will still be 
the moving procession of the few charioted 
in splendour on the highway, and the many 
pacing by their side along the line of the 
same journey. There will, perhaps, be a 
somewhat more elevated footpath for the 
crowd — there will be an air of greater com- 
fort and sufficiency amongst them ; and the 
respectability of evident worth and goodness 
will sit upon the countenance of this general 
population. But, bating these, we look for 
no great change in the external aspect of 
society. It will only be a moral and a spi- 
ritual change. Kings will retain their scep- 
tres, and nobles their coronets ; but, as they 
float in magnificence along, will they look 
with benignant feeling on the humble way- 
farers ; and the honest salutations of regard 
and reverence will arise to them back again ; 
and, should any weary passenger be ready 
to sink unfriended on his career, will he, at 
one time, be borne onwards by his fellows 
on the pathway, and, at another, will a 
shower of beneficence be made to descend 
from the crested equipage that overtakes 
him. It is Utopianism to think, that in the 
ages of our world which are yet to come, 
the outward distinctions of life will not all 
be uphold en. But it is not Utopianism, it 
is Prophecy to aver, that the breath of a 
new spirit will go abroad over the great fa- 
mily of mankind — so, that while, to the end 
of time, there shall be the high and the low 
in every passing generation, will the charity 
of kindred feelings, and of a common un- 
derstanding, create a fellowship between 
them on their way, till they reach that hea- 
ven where human love shall be perfected, 
and all human greatness is unknown. 

In various places in the New Testament, 
do we see the checks of spirit and delicacy 
laid upon all extravagant desires. Our text, 
while it enjoins the performance of good to 
others, up to the full measure of your de- 
sires of good from them, equally enjoins the 
keeping down of these desires to the mea- 
sure of your performances. If Christian 
dispensers had only to do with Christian 
recipients, the whole work of benevolence 
would be with ease and harmony carried 
on. All that was unavoidable — all that 
came from the hand of Providence — all 
that was laid upon our suffering brethren 
by the unlooked-for visitations of accident 
or disease — all that pain and misfortune, 
which necessarily attaches to the constitu 
tion of the species — all this the text most 
amply provides for ; and all this a Christian 
society would be delighted to stretch forth 



ON THE GREAT CHRISTIAN LAW 



OF RECIPROCITY BETWEEN MEN. 263 



their means for the purpose of alleviating 
or doing away. 

We should not have dwelt so long upon 
this lesson, were it not for the essential 
Christian principle that is involved in it. 
The morality of the gospel is not more 
strenuous on the side of the duty of giving 
of this world's goods when it is needed, than 
it is against the desire of receiving when it 
is not needed. It is more blessed to give 
than to receive, and therefore less blessed to 
receive than to give. For the enforcement 
of this principle among the poorer brethren, 
did Paul give up a vast portion of his apos- 
tolical time and labour ; and that he might 
be an ensample to the flock of working with 
his own hands, rather than be burdensome, 
did he set himself down to the occupation 
of a tent-maker. That lesson is surely wor- 
thy of engrossing one sermon of an unin- 
spired teacher, for the sake of which an 
inspired Apostle of the Gentiles engrossed 
as much time as would have admitted the 
preparation and the delivery of many ser- 
mons. But there is no more striking indi- 
cation of the whole spirit and character of 
the gospel in this matter, than the example 
of him who is the author of it— and of whom 
we read these affecting words, that he came 
into the world not to be ministered unto, 
out to minister. It is a righteous thing 
in him who has of this world's goods, to 
minister to the necessities of others; but 
it is a still higher attainment of righteous- 
ness in him who has nothing but the daily 
earnings of his daily work to depend upon, 
so to manage and to strive that he shall not 
need to be ministered unto. Christianity 
overlooks no part of human conduct ; and 
by providing for this in particular, does it, 
in fact, overtake, and that with a precept 
of utmost importance, the habit and condi- 
tion of a very extended class in human so- 
ciety. And never does the gospel so exhibit 
its adaptation to our species — and never does 
virtue stand in such characters of strength 
and sacredness before us — as when impreg- 
nated with the evangelical spirit and urged 
by evangelical motives, it takes its most di- 
rect sanction from the life and doings of the 
Saviour. 

And he who feels as he ought, will bear 
with cheerfulness all that the Saviour pre- 
scribes, when he thinks how much it is for 
him that the Saviour has borne. We speak 



not of his poverty all the time that he lived 
upon earth. We speak not of those years 
when, a houseless wanderer in an unthank- 
ful world, he had not where to lay his head. 
We speak not of the meek and uncomplain- 
ing sufferance with which he met the many 
ills that oppressed the tenor of his mortal 
existence. But we speak of that awful 
burden which crushed and overwhelmed 
its termination. We speak of that season 
of the hour and the power of darkness, when 
it pleased the Lord to bruise him, and to 
make his soul an offering for sin. To esti- 
mate aright the endurance of him who 
himself bore our infirmities, would we ask 
of any individual to recollect some deep 
and awful period of abandonment in his 
own history — when that countenance which 
at one time beamed and brightened upon 
him from above, was mantled in thickest 
darkness — when the iron of remorse enter- 
ed into his soul — and, laid on a bed of tor- 
ture, he was made to behold the evil of sin, 
and to taste of its bitterness. Let him look 
back, if he can, on this conflict of many 
agitations, and then figure the whole of this 
mental wretchedness to be borne off by* 
the ministers of vengeance into hell, and 
stretched out unto eternity. And if, on the 
great day of expiation, a full atonement was 
rendered, and all that should have fallen 
upon us was placed upon the head of the 
sacrifice — let him hence compute the weight 
and the awfulness of those sorrows whicn 
were carried by him on whom the chastise- 
ment of our peace was laid, and who poured 
out his soul unto the death for us. If ever 
a sinner, under such a visitation, shall again 
emerge into peace and joy in believing — 
if he ever shall again find his way to that 
fountain which is opened in the house of 
Judah — if he shall recover once more that 
sunshine of the soul, which, on the days 
that are past, disclosed to him the beauties 
of holiness here, and the glories of heaven 
hereafter — if ever he shall hear with effect, 
in this world, that voice from the mercy- 
seat, which still proclaims a welcome to the 
chief of sinners, and beckons him afresh to 
reconciliation — O ! how gladly then should 
he bear throughout the remainder of his 
days, the whole authority of the Lord who 
bought him ; and bind forever to his own 
person that yoke of the Saviour which is 
easy, and that burden which is light. 



264 



ON THE DISSIPATION OF LARGE CITIES. 



[DISC. 



DISCOURSE VI. 

On the Dissipation of large Cities* 

" Let no man deceive you with vain words ; for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the 
children of disobedience." — Ephesians v. 6. 



There is one obvious respect in which 
the standard of morality amongst men, dif- 
fers from that pure and universal standard 
which God hath set up for the obedience 
of his subjects. Men will not demand very 
urgently of each other, that, which does 
not very nearly, or very immediately, af- 
fect their own personal and particular in- 
terest. To the violations of justice, or 
truth, or humanity, they will be abundant- 
ly sensitive, because these offer a most vi- 
sible and quickly felt encroachment on 
this interest. And thus it is, that the social 
virtues, even without any direct sanction 
from God at all, will ever draw a certain 
portion of respect and reverence around 
them ; and that a loud testimony of abhor- 
rence may often be heard from the mouths 
of ungodly men, against all such vices as 
may be classed under the general designa- 
tion of vices of dishonesty. 

Now, the same thing does not hold true 
of another class of vices, which may be 
termed the vices of dissipation. These do 
not touch, in so visible or direct a manner, 
on the security of what man possesses, and 
of what man has the greatest value for. 
But man is a selfish being, and therefore it 
is, that the ingredient of selfishness gives a 
keenness to his estimation of the evil and 
of the enormity of the former vices, which 
is scarcely felt at all in any estimation he 
may form of the latter vices. It is very 
true, at the same time, that if one were to 
compute the whole amount of the mischief 
they bring upon society, it would be found 
that the profligacies of mere dissipation go 
very far to break up the peace, and enjoy- 
ment, and even the relative virtues of the 
world : and that, if these profligacies were 
reformed, it would work a mighty aug- 
mentation on the temporal good both of 
individuals and families. But the con- 
nexion between sobriety of character, and 
the happiness of the community, is not so 
apparent, because it is more remote than 
the connexion which obtains between in- 
tegrity of character, and the happiness of 
the community ; and man being not only 
a selfish, but a shortsighted being, it fol- 
lows, that while the voice of execration may 
be distinctly heard against every instance of 
fraud or of injustice, instances of licentious- 
ness may occur on every side of us, and be 
reported on the one hand with the utmost 
levity, and be listened to, on the other, with 
the most entire and complacent toleration. 



Here, then, is a point, in which the general 
morality of the world is at utter and irre- 
concilable variance with the law of God. 
Here is a case, in which the voice that cometh 
forth from the tribunal of public opinion 
pronounces one thing, and the voice that 
cometh forth from the sanctuary of God 
pronounces another. When there is an 
agreement between these two voices, the 
principle on which obedience is rendered to 
their joint and concurring authority, may 
be altogether equivocal; and, with reli- 
gious and irreligious men, you may ob- 
serve an equal exhibition of all the equi- 
ties, and all the civilities of life. But when 
there is a discrepancy between these two 
voices — or when the one attaches a crimi- 
nality to certain habits of conduct, and is 
not at all seconded by the testimony of 
the other — then do we escape the confu- 
sion of mingled motives, and mingled au- 
thorities. The character of the two parties 
emerges out of the ambiguity which in- 
volved it. The law of God points, it must 
be allowed, as forcible an anathema against 
the man of dishonesty, as against the man 
of dissipation. But the chief burden of the 
world's anathema is laid on the head of 
the former ; and therefore it is, that, on the 
latter ground, we meet with more discri- 
minative tests of principle, and gather more 
satisfying materials for the question of — 
who is on the side of the Lord of hosts, and 
who is against him ? 

The passage we have now submitted to 
you, looks hard on the votaries of dissi- 
pation. It is like eternal truth, lifting up 
its own proclamation, and causing it to be 
heard amid the errors and the delusions 
of a thoughtless world. It is like the Deity 
himself, looking forth, as he did, from a 
cloud, on the Egyptians of old, and trou- 
bling the souls of those who are lovers of 
pleasure, more than lovers of God. It is 
like the voice of heaven, crying down the 
voice of human society, and sending forth 
a note of alarm amongst its giddy genera- 
tions. It is like the unrolling of a portion 
of that book of higher jurisprudence, out 
of which we shall be judged on the day of 
our coming account, and setting before our 
eyes an enactment, which, if we disregard it, 
will turn that day into the day of our com- 
ing condemnation. The words of man are 
adverted to in this solemn proclamation of 
God, against all unlawful and all unhal- 
lowed enjoyments, and they are called 



ON THE DISSIPATION OF LARGE CITIES. 



265 



words of vanity. He sets aside the au- 
thority of human opinion altogether ; and, 
on an irrevocable record, has he stamped 
such an assertion of the authority that be- 
longeth to himself only, as serves to the 
end of time for an enduring memorial of 
his will ; and as commits the truth of the 
Lawgiver to the execution of a sentence 
of wrath against all whose souls are 
hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. There 
is, in fact, a peculiar deceitfulness in the 
matter before us; and, in this verse, are 
we warned against iW'Let no man de- 
ceive you with vain words; for, because 
of these things, the wrath of God cometh 
on the children of disobedience." 

In the preceding verse, there is such an 
enumeration as serves to explain what the 
things are which are alluded to in the text ; 
and it is such an enumeration, you should 
remark, as goes to fasten the whole terror, 
and the whole threat, of the coming ven- 
geance — not on the man who combines in 
his own person all the characters of ini- 
quity which are specified, but on the man 
who realizes any one of these characters. 
It is not, you will observe, the conjunction 
and, but the conjunction or, which is in- 
terposed between them. It is not as if we 
said, that the man who is dishonest, and 
licentious, and covetous, and unfeeling, 
shall not inherit the kingdom of God — but 
the man who is either dishonest, or licen- 
tious, or covetous, or unfeeling. On the 
single and exclusive possession of any one 
of these attributes, will God deal with you 
as with an enemy. The plea, that we are 
a little thoughtless, but we have a good 
heart, is conclusively cut asunder by this 
portion of the law and of the testimony. 
And in a corresponding passage, in the 
ninth verse of the sixth chapter of Paul's 
first epistle to the Corinthians, the same 
peculiarity is observed in the enumeration 
of those who shall be excluded from God's 
favour, and have the burden of God's 
wrath laid on them through eternity. It is 
not the man who combines all the deformi- 
ties of character which are there specified, 
but the man who realizes any one of the 
separate deformities. Some of them are 
the vices of dishonesty, others of them are 
the vices of dissipation ; and, as if aware 
of a deceitfulness from this cause, he, after 
telling us that the unrighteous shall not in- 
herit the kingdom of God, bids us not be 
deceived — for that neither the licentious, 
nor the abominable, nor thieves, nor covet- 
ous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor ex- 
tortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of 
God. 

He who keepeth the whole law, but of- 
fendeth in one point, says the Apostle James, 
is guilty of all. The truth is, that his dis- 
obedience on this one point may be more de- 
cisive of the state of his loyalty to God, than 
2L 



his keeping all the rest. It may be the only 
point on which the character of his loyalty 
is really brought to the trial. All his con- 
formities to the law of God might have been 
rendered, because they thwarted not his 
own inclination ; and, therefore, would have 
been rendered though there had been no 
law at all. The single infraction may have 
taken place in the only case where there 
was a real competition between the will of 
the creature, and the will of the Creator ; 
and the event proves to which of the two 
the right of superiority is awarded. Alle- 
giance to God in truth is but one principle, 
and may be described by one short and 
summary expression : and one act of dis- 
obedience may involve in it such a total sur- 
render of the principle, as goes to dethrone 
God altogether from the supremacy which 
belongs to him. So that the account be- 
tween a creature and the Creator is not like 
an account made up of many items, where 
the expunging of one item would only make 
one small and fractional deduction from the 
whole sum of obedience. If you reserve 
but a single item from this account, and an- 
other makes a principle of completing and 
rendering up the whole of it, then your cha- 
racter varies from his not by a slight shade 
of difference, but stands contrasted with it 
in direct and diametric opposition. We 
perceive, that, while with him the will of 
God has the mastery over all his inclina- 
tions, with you there is, at least, one incli- 
nation which has the mastery over God; 
that while in his bosom there exists a single 
and subordinating principle of allegiance to 
the law, in yours there exists another prin- 
ciple, which, on the coming round of a fit 
opportunity, developes itself in an act of 
transgression; that, while with him God 
may be said to walk and to dwell in him, 
with you there is an evil visitant, who has 
taken up his abode in your heart, and lodges 
there either in a state of dormancy or of 
action, according to circumstances; that, 
while with him the purpose is honestly 
proceeded on, of doing nothing which God 
disapproves, with you there is a purpose 
not only different, but opposite, of doing 
something which he disapproves. On this 
single difference is suspended not a question 
of degree, but a question of kind. There 
are presented to us not two hues of the 
same colour, but two colours, just as broadly 
contrasted with each other as light and 
darkness. And such is the state of the al- 
ternative between a partial and an unre- 
served obedience, that while God impera- 
tively claims the one as his due, he looks 
on the other as an expression of defiance 
against him, and against his sovereignty. 

It is the very same in civil government. 
A man renders himself an outcast by one 
act of disobedience. He does not need to 
accumulate upon himself the guilt of all the 



266 



ON THE DISSIPATION OF LARGE CITIES. 



[DISC. 



higher atrocities in crime, ere he forfeits his 
life to the injured laws of his country. By 
the perpetration of any of them is the whole 
vengeance of the state brought to bear upon 
his person, and sentence of death is pro- 
nounced on a single murder, or forgery, or 
act of violent depredation. 

And let us ask you just to reflect on the 
tone and spirit of that man towards his God, 
who would palliate, for example, the vices 
of dissipation to which he is addicted, by 
alleging his utter exemption from the vices 
of dishonesty, to which he is not addicted. 
Just think of the real disposition and cha- 
racter of his soul, who can say, "I will 
please God, but only when, in so doing, I 
also please myself; or I will do homage to 
his law, but just in those instances by which 
I honour the rights, and fulfil the expecta- 
tions, of society ; or I will be decided by 
his opinion of the right and the wrong, but 
just when the opinion of my neighbourhood 
lends its powerful and effective confirma- 
tion. But in other cases, when the matter 
is reduced to a bare question between man 
and God, when he is the single party I have 
to do with, when his will and his wrath are 
the only elements which enter into the de- 
liberation, when judgment, and eternity, 
and the voice of him who speaketh from 
heaven are the only considerations at issue — 
then do I feel myself at greater liberty, and 
I shall take my own way, and walk in the 
counsel of mine own heart, and after the 
sight of my own eyes." O ! be assured, 
that when all this is laid bare on the day of 
reckoning, and the discerner of the heart 
pronounces upon it, and such a sentence is 
to be given, as will make it manifest to the 
consciences of all assembled, that true and 
righteous are the judgments of God — there 
is many a creditable man who has passed 
through the world with the plaudits and 
the testimonies of all his fellows, and with- 
out one other flaw upon his reputation but 
the very slender one of certain harmless 
foibles, and certain good-humoured pecu- 
liarities, who when brought to the bar of 
account, will stand convicted there of having 
made a divinity of his own will, and spent 
his days in practical and habitual atheism. 

And this argument is not at all affected 
by the actual state of sinfulness and infirmity 
into which we have fallen. It is true, even 
of saints on earth, that they commit sin. 
But to be overtaken in a fault is one thing ; 
to commit that fault with the deliberate con- 
sent of the mind is another. There is in the 
bosom of every true Christian a strenuous 
principle of resistance to sin, and it belongs 
to the very essence of the principle that it 
is resistance to all sin. It admits of no vo- 
luntary indulgence to one sin more than 
to another. Such an indulgence would not 
only change the character of what may be 
called the elementary principle of regene- 



ration, but would destroy it altogether. 
The man who has entered on a course of 
Christian discipleship, carries on an un- 
sparing and universal war with all iniquity. 
He has chosen Christ for his alone master, 
and he struggles against the ascendency of 
every other. It is his sustained and habitual 
exertion in following after him to forsake 
all; so that if his performances were as 
complete as his endeavour, you would not 
merely see a conformity to some of the 
precepts, but a conformity to the whole law 
of God. At all events, the endeavour is an 
honest one, and so far successful, that sin 
has not the dominion; and sure we are, 
that, in such a state of things, the vices of 
dissipation can have no existence. These 
vices can be more effectually shunned, and 
more effectually surmounted, for example, 
than the infirmities of an unhappy temper. 
So that, if dissipation still attaches to the 
character, and appears in the conduct of any 
individual, we know not a more decisive 
evidence of the state of that individual as 
being one of the many who crowd the broad 
way that leadeth to destruction. We look 
no further to make out our estimate of his 
present condition as being that of a rebel, 
and of his future prospect as being that of 
spending an eternity in hell. There is no 
halting between two opinions in this matter. 
The man who enters a career of dissipation 
throws down the gauntlet of defiance to his 
God. The man who persists in this career 
keeps on the ground of hostility against 
him. 

Let us now endeavour to trace the origin, 
the progress, and the effects of a life of dis- 
sipation. 

First, then, it may be said of a very great 
number of young men, on their entrance 
into the business of the world, that they have 
not been enough fortified against its se- 
ducing influences by their previous educa- 
tion at home. Generally speaking, they 
come out from the habitation of their pa- 
rents unarmed and unprepared for the con- 
test which awaits them. If the spirit of 
this world's morality reign in their own fa- 
mily, then it cannot be, that their introduc- 
tion into a more public scene of life will be 
very strictly guarded against those vices on 
which the world placidly smiles, or at least 
regards with silent toleration. They may 
have been told, in early boyhood, of the in- 
famy of a lie. They may have had the vir- 
tues of punctuality, and of economy, and 
of regular attention to business, pressed upon 
their observation. They may have heard a 
uniform testimony on the side of good be- 
haviour, up to the standard of such current 
moralities as obtain in their neighbourhood ; 
and this, we are ready to admit, may in- 
clude in it a testimony against all such ex- 
cesses of dissipation as would unfit them 
for the prosecution of this world's interests. 



ON THE DISSIPATION OF LARGE CITIES. 



267 



But let us ask, whether there are not pa- 
rents, who, after they have carried the work 
of discipline thus far, forbear to carry it any 
farther : who, while they would mourn over 
it as a family trial should any son of theirs 
fall a victim to excessive dissipation, yet are 
willing to tolerate the lesser degrees of it ; 
who, instead of deciding the question on 
the alternative of his heaven or his hell, are 
satisfied with such a measure of sobriety as 
will save him from ruin and disgrace in this 
life ; who, if they can can only secure this, 
have no great objection to the moderate 
share he may take in this world's conform- 
ities - ; who feel, that in this matter there is 
a necessity and a power of example against 
which it is vain to struggle, and which must 
be acquiesced in ; who deceive themselves 
with the fancied impossibility of stopping 
the evil in question — and say, that business 
must be gone through ; and that, in the 
prosecution of it, exposures must be made ; 
and that, for the success of it, a certain de- 
gree of accommodation to others must be 
observed ; and seeing that it is so mighty 
an object for one to widen the extent of his 
connexions, he must neither be very retired 
nor very peculiar — nor must his hours of 
companionship be too jealously watched or 
inquired into — nor must we take him too 
strictly to task about engagements, and ac- 
quaintances, and expenditure — nor must we 
forget, that while sobriety has its time and 
its season in one period of life, indulgence 
has its season in another ; and we may fetch 
from the recollected follies of our own 
youth, a lesson of connivance for the pre- 
sent occasion; and altogether there is no 
help for it ; and it appears to us, that abso- 
lutely and totally to secure him from ever 
entering upon scenes of dissipation, you 
must absolutely and totally withdraw him 
from the world, and surrender all his pros- 
pects of advancement, and give up the ob- 
ject of such a provision for our families as 
we feel to be a first and most important 
concern with us. 

" Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his 
righteousness," says the Bible, " and all other 
things shall be added unto you." This is the 
promise which the faith of a Christian pa- 
rent will rest upon ; and in the face of every 
hazard to the worldly interests of his off- 
spring, will he bring them up in the strict nur- 
ture and admonition of the Lord; and he will 
loudly protest against iniquity, in all its de- 
grees and in all its modifications ; and while 
the power of discipline remains with him, 
will it ever be exerted on the side of pure, 
faultless, undeviating obedience; and he 
will tolerate no exception whatever ; and he 
will brave all that looks formidable in singu- 
larity, and ail that looks menacing in sepa- 
ration from the custom and countenance of 
the world ; and feeling that his main con- 
cern is to secure for himself and for his fa- 



mily a place in the city which hath founda- 
tions, will he spurn all the maxims and all 
the plausibilities of a contagious neighbour- 
hood away from him. He knows the price 
of his Christianity, and it is that he must 
break off conformity with the world — nor 
for any paltry advantage which it has to 
offer, will he compromise the eternity of his 
children. And let us tell the parents of an- 
other spirit and principle, that they are as 
good as incurring the guilt of a human sa- 
crifice ; that they are offering up their chil- 
dren at the shrine of an idol ; that they are 
parties in provoking the wrath of God 
against them here ; and on the day when 
that wrath is to be revealed, shall they hear 
not only the moanings of their despair but 
the outcries of their bitterest execration. 
On that day. the glance of reproach from 
their own neglected offspring will throw a 
deeper shade of wretchedness over the dark 
and boundless futurity that lies before them. 
And if, at the time when prophets rung the 
tidings of God's displeasure against the peo- 
ple of Israel it was denounced as the foulest 
of all their abominations that they caused 
their children to pass through the fire unto 
Moloch — know, ye parents, w r ho in placing 
your children on some road to gainful em- 
ployment, have placed them without a sigh 
in the midst of depravity, so near and so 
surrounding, that, without a miracle, they 
must perish, you have done an act of idola- 
try to the god of this world ; you have com- 
manded your household after you to wor- 
ship him as the great divinity of their lives ; 
and you have caused your children to make 
their approaches unto his presence — and, 
in so doing, to pass through the fire of 
such temptations as have destroyed them. 

We do not wish to offer you an over- 
charged picture on this melancholy subject. 
What we now say is not applicable to all. 
Even in the most corrupt and crowded of 
our cities, parents are to be found, who no- 
bly dare the surrender of every vain and 
flattering illusion, rather than surrender the 
Christianity of their children. And what 
is still more affecting, over the face of the, 
country do we meet with such parents, who 
look on this world as a passage to another, 
and on all the members of their household 
as fellow-travellers to eternity along with 
them; and who, in the true spirit of be- 
lievers, feel the salvation of their children 
to be, indeed, the burden of their best and 
dearest interest ; and who, by prayer, and 
precept, and example, have strenuously la- 
boured with their souls, from the earliest 
light of their understanding ; and have 
taught them to tremble at the way of evil 
doers, and to have no fellowship with those 
who keep not rhe commandments of God — 
nor is there a day more sorrowful in the 
annals of this pious family, than when the 
course of time has brought them onwards 



268 



ON THE DISSIPATION OF LARGE CITIES. 



[DISC. 



to the departure of their eldest boy — and he 
must bid adieu to his native home, with all 
the peace, and all the simplicity which 
abound in it — and as he eyes in fancy the 
distant town whither he is going, does he 
shrink as from the thought of an unknown 
wilderness — and it is his firm purpose to 
keep aloof from the dangers and the profli- 
gacies which deform it — and, should sinners 
offer to entice him, not to consent, and 
never, never to forget the lessons of a fa- 
ther's vigilance, the tenderness of a mother's 
prayers. 

Let us now, in the next place, pass from 
that state of things which obtains among the 
young at their outset into the world, and 
take a look of that state of things which 
obtains after they have got fairly introduced 
into it — when the children of the ungodly, 
and the children of the religious, meet on 
one common arena — when business asso- 
ciates them together in one chamber*, and 
the omnipotence of custom lays it upon 
them all to meet together at periodic inter- 
vals, and join in the same parties, and the 
same entertainments — when the yearly im- 
portation of youths from the country falls 
in with that assimilating mass of corrup- 
tion which has got so firm and so rooted 
an establishment in the town — when the 
frail and unsheltered delicacies of the timid 
boy have to stand a rude and a boisterous 
contest with the hardier depravity of those 
who have gone before him — when ridicule, 
and example, and the vain words of a de- 
lusive sophistry, which palliates in his hear- 
ing the enormity of vice, are all brought to 
bear upon his scruples, and to stifle the re- 
morse he might feel when he casts his prin- 
ciple and his purity away from him-— when, 
placed as he is in a land of strangers, he 
finds, that the tenure of acquaintanceship, 
with nearly all around him, is, that he ren- 
der himself up in a conformity to their 
doings^-when a voice, like the voice of 
protecting friendship, bids him to the feast; 
and a welcome, like the welcome of honest 
kindness, hails his accession to the society; 
and a spirit, like the spirit of exhilarating 
joy, animates the whole scene of hospitality 
before him ; and hours of rapture roll suc- 
cessively away on the wings of merriment, 
jocularity, and song ; and after the homage 
of many libations has been rendered to 
honour, and fellowship, and patriotism, im- 
purity is at length proclaimed in full and 
open cry, as one presiding divinity, at the 
board of their social entertainment. 

And now it remains to compute the gene- 
ral result of a process, which we assert of 
the vast majority of our young, on their 
way to manhood, that they have to under- 
go. The result, is, that the vast majority 
are initiated into all the practices, and 
describe the full career of dissipation. 
Those who have imbibed from their fathers 



the spirit of this world's morality, are not 
sensibly arrested in this career, either by 
the opposition of their own friends, or by 
the voice of their own conscience. Those 
who have imbibed an opposite spirit, and 
have brought it into competition with an 
evil world, and have at length yielded, have 
done so, we may well suppose, with many 
a sigh> and many a struggle, and many a 
look of remembrance on those former years 
when they were taught to lisp the prayer 
of infancy, and were trained in a mansion 
of piety to a reverence for God, and for all 
his ways ; and, even still, will a parent's part- 
ing advice haunt his memory, and a letter 
from the good old man revive the sensibilities 
which at one time guarded and adorned him; 
and, at times, will the transient gleam of 
remorse lighten up its agony within him ; 
and when he contrasts the profaneness and 
depravity of his present companions, with 
the sacredness of all he ever heard or saw 
in his faiher's dwelling, it will almost feel 
as if conscience were again to resume her 
power, and the revisiting spirit of God to 
call him back again from the paths of wick- 
edness ; and on his restless bed will the 
images of guilt conspire to disturb him, and 
the terrors of punishment offer to scare him 
away ; and many will be the dreary and 
dissatisfied intervals when he shall be forced 
to acknowledge that in bartering his soul 
for the pleasures of sin, he has bartered the 
peace and enjoyment of the world along 
with it. But, alas! the entanglements of 
companionship have got hold of him ; and 
the inveteracy of habit tyrannizes over all 
his purposes ; and the stated opportunity 
again comes round ; and the loud laugh of 
his partners in guilt chases, for another rea- 
son, all his despondency away from him t 
and the infatuation gathers upon him every 
month; and a hardening process goes on 
within his heart ; and the deceitfulness of 
sin grows apace ; and he at length becomes 
one of the sturdiest and most unrelenting 
of her votaries ; and he, in his turn, strength- 
ens the conspiracy that is formed against 
the morals of a new generation ; and all the 
ingenuous delicacies of other days are ob- 
literated ; and he contracts a temperament 
of knowing, hackneyed, unfeeling depra- 
vity; and thus the mischief is transmit- 
ted from one year to another, and keeps up 
the guilty history of every place of crowd- 
ed population. 

And let us here speak one word to those 
seniors in depravity — those men who give 
to the corruption of acquaintances, who are 
younger than themselves, their counte- 
nance, their agency ; and who can initiate 
them without a sigh in the mysteries of 
guilt, and care not though a parent's hope 
should wither and expire under the conta- 
gion of their ruffian example. It is only 
upon their own conversion that we can 



■] 



ON THE DISSIPATION OF LARGE CITIES. 



speak to them the pardon of the gospel. It 
is only if they themselves are washed, and 
sanctified, and justified, that we can warrant 
their personal deliverance from the wrath 
that is to come. But under all the conceal- 
ment which rests on the futurities of God ? s 
administration, we know that there are de- 
grees of suffering in hell — and that while 
some are beaten with few stripes, others 
are beaten with many. And surely, if they 
who turn many to righteousness shall shine 
as the stars for ever and ever, we may be 
well assured that they who patronize the 
cause of iniquity — they who can beckon 
others to that way which leadeth on to the 
chambers of death — they who can aid and 
witness, without a sigh, the extinction of 
youthful modesty — surely, it may well be 
said of such, that on them a darker frown 
will fall from the judgment-seat, and through 
eternity will they have to bear the pains of 
a fiercer indignation. 

Having thus looked to the commence- 
ment of a course of dissipation, and to its 
progress, let us now, in the third place, 
look to its usual termination. We speak 
not at present of the coming death, and of 
the coming judgment, but of the change 
which takes place on many a votary of licen- 
tiousness, when he becomes what "the world 
calls a reformed man ; and puts on the de- 
cencies of a sober and domestic establish- 
ment ; and bids adieu to the pursuits and 
the profligacies of youth, not because he 
has repented of them, but because he has 
outlived them. You all perceive how this 
may be done without one movement of the 
heart, or of the understanding, towards God 
— that it is done by many, though duty to 
him be not in all their thoughts — that the 
change, in this case, is not from the idol 
of pleasure unto God, but only from one 
idol to another — and that, after the whole 
of this boasted transformation, we may still 
"behold the same body of sin and of death, 
and only a new complexion thrown over it. 
There may be the putting on of sobriety, 
but there is no putting on of godliness. It 
is a common and easy transition to pass 
from one kind of disobedience to another, 
"but it is not so easy to give up that re- 
rjelliousness of the heart which lies at the 
root of all disobedience. It may be easy, 
after the wonted course of dissipation is 
ended, to hold out another aspect altogether 
in the eye of acquaintances ; but it is not 
so easy to recover that shock, and that 
overthrow, which the religious principle 
sustains, when a man first enters the world, 
and surrenders himself to the power of its 
enticements. Such were some of you, says 
the Apostle, but ye are washed, and sanc- 
tified, and justified. Our reformed man 
knows not the meaning of such a process ; 
and. most assuredly, has not at all realized 
it in the history of his own person. We 



will not say what new object he is running 
after. It may be wealth, or ambition, or 
philosophy; but it is nothing connected with 
the interest of his soul. It bears no refer- 
ence whatever to the concerns of that great 
relationship which obtains between the 
creature and the Creator. The man has 
withdrawn, and perhaps for ever, from the 
scenes of dissipation, and has betaken him- 
self to another way — but still it is his own 
way. It is not the will or the way of God 
that he is yet caring for. Such a man may 
bid adieu to profligacy in his own person. 
But he lifts up the light of his countenance 
on the profligacy of others. He gives it 
the whole weight and authority of his con- 
nivance. He wields, we will say it, such an 
instrumentality of seduction over the young, 
as, though not so alarming, is far more dan- 
gerous than the undisguised attempts of 
those who are the immediate agents of cor- 
ruption. The formal and deliberate conspi- 
racy of those who club together, at stated 
terms of companionship, may be all seen, 
and watched, and guarded against. But 
how shall we pursue this conspiracy into 
its other ramifications 1 How shall we be 
able to neutralize that insinuating poison 
which distils from the lips of grave and re- 
spectable citizens'? How shall we be able 
to dissipate that gloss which is thrown by 
the smile of elders and superiors over the 
sins of forbidden indulgence ? How can 
we disarm the bewitching sophistry which 
lies in all these evident tokens of compla- 
cency, on the part of advanced and reput- 
able men ? How is it possible to trace the 
progress of this sore evil, throughout all 
the business and intercourse of society? 
How can we stem the influence of evil 
communications, when the friend, and the 
patron, and the man who has cheered and 
signalized us by his polite invitations, turns 
his own family-table into a nursery of li- 
centiousness ? How can we but despair of 
ever witnessing on earth a pure and a holy 
generation, when even parents will utter 
their polluting levities in the hearing of their 
own children; and vice, and humotir, and 
gaiety, are all indiscriminately blended into 
one conversation ; and a loud laugh, from 
the initiated and the uninitiated in profli- 
gacy, is ever ready to flatter and to regale 
the man who can thus prostitute his powers 
of entertainment ,% O ! for an arm of strength 
to demolish this firm and far spread com- 
pact of iniquity ; and for the power of 
some such piercing and prophetic voice, 
as might convince our reformed men of 
the baleful influence they cast behind them 
on the morals of the succeeding genera 
tion. 

We, at the same time, have our eye per- 
fectly open to that great external improve- 
ment which has taken place, of late years, 
in the manners of society. There is not the 



270 



ON THE DISSIPATION OF LARGE CITIES. 



| DISC 



same grossness of conversation. There is 
not the same impatience for the withdraw- 
ment of him, who, asked to grace the outset 
of an assembled party, is compelled, at a 
certain step in the process of conviviality, 
by the obligations of professional decency, 
to retire from it. There is not so frequent 
an exaction of this as one of the established 
proprieties of social or of fashionable life. 
And if such an exaction was ever laid by 
the omnipotence of custom on a minister of 
Christianity, it is such an exaction as ought 
never, never, to be complied with. It is not 
for him to lend the sanction of his presence to 
a meeting with which he could not sit to its 
final termination. It is not for him to stand 
associated, for a single hour, with an assem- 
blage of men who begin with hypocrisy, 
and end with downright blackguardism. It 
is not for him to watch the progress of the 
coming ribaldry, and to hit the well selected 
moment when talk, and turbulence, and bois- 
terous merriment, are on the eve of bursting 
forth upon the company, and carrying them 
forward to the full acme and uproar of their 
enjoyment. It is quite in vain to say, that he 
has only sanctified one part of such an en- 
tertainment. He has as good as given his 
connivance to the whole of it, and left be- 
hind him a discharge in full of all its abom- 
inations; and, therefore, be they who they 
may, whether they rank among the proudest 
aristocracy of our land, or are charioted in 
splendour along, as the wealthiest of the 
citizens, it is his part to keep as purely and 
indignantly aloof from such society as this, 
as he would from the vilest and most de- 
basing associations of profligacy. 

And now the important question comes to 
be put ; what is the likeliest way of setting 
up a barrier against this desolating torrent 
of corruption, into which there enter so 
many elements of power and strength, that 
to the general eye, it looks altogether irre- 
sistible? It is easier to give a negative, than 
an affirmative answer to this question. 
And, therefore, it shall be our first remark, 
that the mischief never will be effectually 
■combatted by any expedient separate from 
the growth and the transmission of personal 
Christianity throughout the land. If no 
addition be made to the stock of religious 
principle in a country, then the profligacy 
-of a country will make its obstinate stand 
against all the mechanism of the most skil- 
ful, and plausible, and well looking contriv- 
ances. It must not be disguised from you, 
that it does not lie within the compass either 
of prisons or penitentiaries to work any 
sensible abatement on the wickedness of 
our existing generation. The operation must 
be of a preventive, rather than of a corrective 
tendency. It must be brought to bear upon 
boyhood ; and be kept up through that whole 
period of random exposures through which 
it has to run, on its way to an established 



condition in society; and a high tone ot 
moral purity must be infused into the bosom 
of many individuals; and their agency will 
effect through the channels of family and 
social connexion, what never can be effected 
by any framework of artificial regulations, 
so long as the spirit and character of society 
remain what they are. In other words, the 
progress of reformation will never be sensi- 
bly carried forward beyond the progress of 
personal Christianity in the world; and, 
therefore, the question resolves itself into 
the likeliest method of adding to the num- 
ber of Christian parents who may fortify 
the principles of their children at their first 
outset in life — of adding to the number of 
Christian young men, who might nobly 
dare to be singular, and to perform the an- 
gelic office of guardians and advisers to 
those who are younger than themselves — 
of adding to the number of Christians in 
middle and advanced life, who might, as far 
as in them lies, alter the general feeling and 
countenance of society; and blunt the force 
of that tacit but most seductive testimony, 
which has done so much to throw a pallia- 
tive veil over the guilt of a life of dissipation. 

Such a question cannot be entered upon, 
at present, in all its bearings, and in all its 
generality. And we must, therefore, simply 
satisfy ourselves with the object, that as we 
have attempted already to approach the in- 
difference of parents, and to reproach the 
unfeeling depravity of those young men 
who scatter their pestilential levities around 
the whole circle of their companionship, we 
may now shortly attempt to lay upon the 
men of middle and advanced life, in general 
society, their share of responsibility for the 
morals of the rising generation. For the 
promotion of this great cause, it is not at all 
necessary to school them into any nice or 
exquisite contrivances. Could we only give 
them a desire towards it, and a sense of 
obligation, they would soon find their own 
way to the right exercise of their own in- 
fluence in forwarding the interests of purity 
and virtue among the young. Could we 
Only affect their consciences on this point, 
there would be almost no necessity what- 
ever to guide or enlighten their understand- 
ing. Could we only get them to be Chris- 
tians, and to carry their Christianity into 
their business, they would then feel them- 
selves invested with a guardianship; and 
that time, and pains, and attention, ought 
to be given to the fulfilment of its concerns. 
It is quite in vain to ask, as if there was 
any mystery, or any helplessness about it, 
" What can they do ?" For, is it not the 
fact, most palpably obvious, that much can 
be done even by the mere power of ex- 
ample? Or might not the master of any 
trading establishment send the pervading 
influence of his own principles among some, 
at least, of the servants and auxiliaries who 



ru.] 



VITIATING INFLUENCE OF HIGHER UPON LOWER ORDERS, 



271 



belong to it ? Or can he, in no degree what- 
ever, so select those who are admitted, as 
to ward off much contamination from the 
branches of his employ ? Or might not he 
so deal out his encouragement to the de- 
serving, as to confirm them in all their pur- 
poses of sobriety? Or might not he inter- 
pose the shield of his countenance and his 
testimony between a struggling youth and 
the ridicule of his acquaintances ? Or, by 
the friendly conversation of half an hour, 
might not he strengthen within him every 
principle of virtuous resistance ? By these, 
and by a thousaud other expedients, which 
will readily suggest themselves to him who 
has the good will, might not a healing water 
be sent forth through the most corrupted of 
all our establishments ; and it be made safe 
for the unguarded young to officiate in its 
chambers ; and it be made possible to enter 
upon the business of the world without en- 
tering on such a scene of temptation, as to 
render almost inevitable the vice of the 
world, and its impiety, and its final and 
everlasting condemnation? ^Yould Chris- 
tians only be open and intrepid, and carry 
their religion into their merchandize ; and 



furnish us with a single hundred of such 
houses in this city, where the care and cha 
racter of the master formed a guarantee for 
the sobriety of all his dependents, it would 
be like the clearing out of a piece of culti- 
vated ground in the midst of a frightful wil- 
derness; and parents would know whither 
they could repair with confidence for the 
settlement of their offspring ; and we should 
behold, what is mightily to be desired, a line 
of broad and visible demarcation between 
the church and the world ; and an interest 
so precious as the immortality of children, 
would no longer be left to the play of such 
fortuitous elements, as operated at random 
throughout the confused mass of a mingled 
and indiscriminate society. And thus, the 
pieties of a fathers house might bear to be 
transplanted even into the scenes of ordi- 
nary business ; and instead of withering, as 
they do at present, under a contagion which 
spreads in every direction, and fills up the 
whole face of the community, they might 
flourish in that moral region which was oc- 
cupied by a peculiar people, and which they 
had reclaimed from a world that lieth in 
wickedness. 



DISCOURSE VII. 
On the vitiating Influence of the higher upon the lower Orders of Society, 

" Then said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offences will come ; but wo unto him through 
whom they come ! It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into 
the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.'' — Luke xvii. 1, 2. 

To offend another, according to the com- i the word, when he speaks of your own 
mon acceptation of the words, is to dis- j right hand, or your own right eye, offend- 
please him. — Now, this is not its accepta- 1 ing you. They may do so, by giving you an 
tion in the verse before us, nor in several ! occasion to fall. — And what is here trans- 
other verses of the New Testament. It | lated offend, is, in the first epistle to the 
were coming nearer to the scriptural Corinthians, translated to make to offend; 
meaning of the term, had we, instead of where Paul says, " If meat make my bro- 
offence and offending, adopted the terms, ither to offend, I will eat no more flesh 
scandal and scandalizing. But the full sig- j while the world standeth, lest I make my 
nification of the phrase to offend another, | brother to offend." 

is to cause him to fall from the faith and j The little ones to whom our Saviour al- 
obedience of the gospel. It may be such a | hides, in this passage, he elsewhere more 
falling away as that a man recovers him- ; fully particularises, by telling us, that they 
self— like the disciples, who were all of- 1 are those who believe in him. There is no 
fended in Christ, and forsook him; and, : call here for entering into any controversy 
after a season of separation, were at length about the doctrine of perseverance. It is 
re-established in their discipleship. — Or it j not necessary, either for the purpose of 
may be such a falling away as that there explaining, or of giving force to the practi- 
is no recovery — like those in the gospel of cal lesson of the text now submitted to 
John, who, offended by the sayings of our you. We happen to be as much satisfied 
Saviour, went back, and walked no more with the doctrine, that he who hath a real 
with him. If you put such a stumbling | faith in the gospel of Christ will never fall 
block in the way of a neighbour, who is j away, as we are satisfied with the truth of 
walking on a course of christian disciple- 1 any identical proposition. If a professing 
ship, as to make him fall, you offend him. disciple do, in fact, fall away, this is a 
It is in this sense that our Saviour uses I phenomenon which might be traced to 



272 



VITIATING INFLUENCE OF HIGHER UPON LOWER ORDERS. 



[DISC, 



an essential defect of principle at the first; 
which proves, in fact, that he made the 
mistake of one principle for another ; and 
that, while he thought he had the faith, it 
was not that very faith of the New Tes- 
tament which is unto salvation. There 
might have been the semblance of a work 
of grace without its reality. Such a work, 
if genuinely begun, will be carried on- 
wards even unto perfection. But this is a 
point on which it is not at ail necessary, at 
present, to dogmatize. We are led, by the 
text, to expatiate on the guilt of that one 
man who has wrecked the interest of an- 
other man's eternity. Now, it may be very 
true, that if the second has actually en- 
tered within the strait gate, it is not in the 
power of the first, with all his artifices, 
and all his temptations, to draw him out 
again. But instead of having entered the 
gate, he may only be on the road that leads 
to it ; and it is enough, amid the uncertain- 
ties which, in this life, hang over the ques- 
tion of— who are really believers, and who 
are not '? that it is not known in which of 
these two conditions the little one is; and 
that, therefore, to seduce him from obe- 
dience to the will of Christ, may, in fact, 
be to arrest his progress towards Christ, 
and to draw him back unto the perdition 
of his soul. The whole guilt of the text 
may be realized by him who keeps back 
another from the church, where he might 
have heard, and heard with acceptance, that 
word of life which he has not yet accepted ; 
or by him, whose influence or whose ex- 
ample detains, in the entanglement of any 
one sin, the acquaintance who is meditating 
an outset on the path of decided Christiani- 
ty — seeing, that every such outset will land 
in disappointment those who, in the act of 
following after Christ, do not forsake all ; 
or by him who tampers with the con- 
science of an apparently zealous and con- 
firmed disciple, so as to seduce him into 
some habitual sin, either of neglect or of 
performance — seeing, that the individual 
who but for this seduction might have 
cleaved fully unto the Lord, and turned 
out a prosperous and decided Christian, 
has been led to put a good conscience 
away from him — and so, by making ship- 
wreck of his faith, has proved to the world, 
that it was not the faith which could ob- 
tain the victory. It is true, that it is not 
possible to seduce the elect. But even this 
suggestion, perverse and unjust as it would 
be in its application, is not generally pre- 
sent to the mind of him who is guilty of 
the attempt to seduce, or of the act which 
carries a seducing influence along with it. 
The guilt with which he is chargeable, is 
that of an indifference to the spiritual and 
everlasting fate of others. He is wilfully 
the occasion of causing those who are the 
little ones, or, for any thing he knows, I 



might have been the little ones of Christ, to 
fall ; and it is against him that our Saviour, 
in the text, lifts not a cool, but an impas- 
sioned testimony. It is of him that he 
utters one of the most severe and solemn 
denunciations of the gospel. 

If this text were thoroughly pursued 
into its manifold applications, it would be 
found to lay a weight of fearful responsi- 
bility upon us all. We are here called 
upon not to work out our own salvation, 
but to compute the reflex influence of all 
our works, and of all our ways, on the 
principles of others. And when one thinks 
of the mischief which this influence might 
spread around it, even from Christians of 
chiefest reputation: when one thinks of 
the readiness of man to take shelter in the 
example of an acknowledged superior; 
when one thinks that some inconsistency 
of ours might seduce another into such an 
imitation as overbears the reproaches of 
his own conscience, and as, by vitiating 
the singleness of his eye, makes the whole 
of his body, instead of being full of light, 
to be full of darkness; when one takes the 
lesson along with him into the various con- 
ditions of life he may be called by Provi- 
dence to occupy, and thinks, that if, either 
as a parent surrounded by his family, or as 
a master by the members of his establish- 
ment, or as a citizen by the many observers 
of his neighbourhood around him, he shall 
either speak such words, or do such ac- 
tions, or administer his affairs in such a 
way as is unworthy of his high and im- 
mortal destination, that then a taint of cor- 
ruption is sure to descend from such an 
exhibition, upon the immortals who are on 
every side of him; when One thinks of 
himself as the source and the centre of a 
contagion which might bring a blight upon 
the graces and the prospects of other souls 
besides his own — surely this is enough to 
supply him with a reason why, in work- 
ing out his own personal salvation, he 
should do it with fear, and with watchful- 
ness, and with much trembling. 

But we are now upon the ground of a 
higher and more delicate conscientiousness, 
than is generally to be met with. Whereas, 
our object, at present, is to expose certain 
of the grosser offences which abound in so- 
ciety, and which spread a most dangerous 
and ensnaring influence among the indi- 
viduals who compose it. To this we have 
been insensibly led, by the topics of that dis- 
course which we addressed to you on a for- 
mer occasion ; and when it fell in our way 
to animadvert on the magnitude of that 
man's guilt, who, either by his example, or 
his connivance, or his direct and formal 
tuition, can speed the entrance of the yet 
unpractised young on a career of dissipa- 
tion. And whether he be a parent, who, 
trenched in this world's maxims, can, with- 



VILj 



VITIATING INFLUENCE OF HIGHER UPON LOWER ORDERS. 



273 



out a struggle, and without a sigh, leave his 
helpless offspring to take their random and 
unprotected way through this world's con- 
formities; or whether he be one of those 
seniors in depravity, who can cheer on his 
more youthful companion to a surrender of 
all those scruples, and all those delicacies, 
which have hitherto adorned him ; or whe- 
ther he be a more aged citizen, who, having 
run the wonted course of intemperance, can 
cast an approving eye on the corruption 
throughout all its stages, and give a tenfold 
force to all its allurements, by setting up the 
authority of grave and reformed manhood 
upon its side; in each of these characters do 
we see an offence that is pregnant with 
deadliest mischief to the principles of the 
rising generation : and while wo are told by 
our text, that, for such offences, there exists 
some deep and mysterious necessity — inso- 
much, that it is impossible but that offences 
must come — yet let us not forget to urge on 
every one sharer in this work of moral con- 
tamination, that never does the meek and 
gentle Saviour speak in terms more threat- 
ening or more reproachful, than when he 
speaks of the enormity of sucli misconduct. 
There cannot, in truth, be a grosser outrage 
committed on the order of God's administra- 
tion, than that which he is in the habit of 
inflicting. There cannot, surely, be a directer 
act of rebellion, than that which multiplies 
the adherents of its own cause, and which 
swells the hosts of the rebellious. There 
cannot be made to rest a feller condemna- 
tion on the head of iniquity, than that which 
is sealed by the blood of its own victims, and 
its own proselytes. Nor should we wonder 
when that is said of such an agent for ini- 
quity which is said of the betrayer of our 
Lord. It were better for him that he had not 
been born. It were better for him, now that 
he is born, could he be committed back again 
to deep annihilation. Bather than that he 
should offend one of these little ones, it were 
better for him that a millstone were hanged 
about his neck, and he were cast into the sea. 

This is one case of such offences as are 
adverted to in the text. Another and still 
more specific is beginning, we understand, 
to be exemplified in our own city, though it 
has not attained to the height or to the fre- 
quency at which it occurs in a neighbouring 
metropolis. We allude to the doing of week- 
day business upon the Sabbath. We allude 
to that violence which is rudely offered to 
the feelings and the associations of sacred- 
ness, by those exactions that an ungodly 
master lays at times on his youthful de- 
pendents—when those hours which they 
wont to spend in church, they are called 
upon to spend in the counting-house — when 
that day, which ought to be a day of piety, 
is turned into a day of posting and of pen- 
manship—when the rules of the decalogue 
are set aside, and utterly superseded by the 
2 M 



rules of the great trading establishment ; and 
every thing is made to give way to the hur- 
rying emergency of orders, and clearances, 
and the demands of instant correspondence. 
Such is the magnitude of this stumbling- 
block, that many is the young man who has 
here fallen to rise no more — that, at this 
point of departure, he has so widened his 
distance from God, as never, in fact, to re- 
turn to him--that, in this distressing contest 
between principle and necessity, the final 
blow has been given to his religious princi- 
ples — that the master whom he serves, and 
under whom he earns his provision for time, 
has here wrested the whole interests of his 
eternity away from him — that, from this 
moment, there gathers upon his soul the 
complexion of a hardier and more deter- 
mined impiety — and conscience once stifled 
now speaks to him with a feebler voice — 
and the world obtains a firmer lodgement in 
his heart — and, renouncing all his original 
tenderness about Sabbath, and Sabbath em- 
ployments, he can now, with the thorough 
unconcern of a fixed and familiarised prose- 
lyte, keep equal pace by his fellows through- 
out every scene of profanation — and he who 
wont to tremble and recoil from the free- 
doms of irreligion with the sensibility of a 
little one, may soon become the most dar- 
ingly rebellious of them all — and that Sab- 
bath which he has now learned, at one time, 
to give to business, he at another, gives to 
unhallowed enjoyments — and it is turned 
into a day of visits and excursions, given up 
to pleasure, and enlivened by all the mirth 
and extravagance of holiday — and, when 
sacrament is proclaimed from the city pul- 
pits, he, the apt, the well trained disciple of 
his corrupt and corrupting superior, is the 
readiest to plan the amusements of the com- 
ing opportunity, and among the very fore- 
most in the ranks of emigration — and though 
he may look back, at times, to the Sabbath 
of his Father's pious house, yet the retro- 
spect is always becoming dimmer, and at 
length it ceases to disturb him— and thus the 
alienation widens every year, till, wholly 
given over to impiety, he lives without God 
in the world. 

And were we asked to state the dimen- 
sions of that iniquity which stalks regard - 
lessly, and at large, over the ruin of youth- 
ful principles — were we asked to find a place 
in the catalogue of guilt for a crime, the 
atrocity of which is only equalled, we un- 
derstand, by its frequency — were we called 
to characterise the man who, so far from 
attempting one counteracting influence 
against the profligacy of his dependents, 
issues, from the chair of authority on which 
he sits, a commandment, in the direct face 
of a commandment from God — the man 
who has chartered impiety in articles of 
agreement, and has vested himself with a 
property in that time which only belongs to 



274 



VITIATING INFLUENCE OF HIGHER UPON LOWER ORDERS. 



[DISC. 



the Lord of the Sabbath — were we asked to j such a proportionate abatement of truth, as 



look to the man who could thus overbear 
the last remnants of remorse in a struggling 
and unpractised bosom, and glitter in all the 
ensigns of a prosperity that is reared on the 
violated consciences of those who are be- 
neath him— 0! were the question put, to 
whom shall we liken such a man ? or what 
is the likeness to which we can compare 
him ? we would say, that the guilt of him 
who trafficked on the highway, or trafficked 
on that outraged coast, from whose weeping 
families children were inseparably torn, was 
far outmeasured by the guilt which could 
thus frustrate a father's fondest prayers, and 
trample under foot the hopes and the pre- 
parations of eternity. 

There is another way whereby in the em- 
ploy of a careless and unprincipled master, 
it is impossible bat that offences must come. 
You know just as well as we do, that there 
are chicaneries in business ; and, so long as 
we forbear stating the precise extent of 
them, there is not an individual among you 
who has a title to construe the assertion into 
an affronting charge of criminality against 
himself. But you surely know as well as we, 
that the mercantile profession, conducted, as 
it often is, with the purest integrity, and 
laying no resistless necessity whatever for 
the surrender of principle on any of its 
members; and dignified by some of the 
noblest exhibitions of untainted honour, and 
devoted friendship, and magnificent gene- 
rosity ; that have ever been recorded of our 
nature ; — you know as well as we, that it 
was utterly extravagant, and in the face of 
all observation, to affirm, that each, and 
every one of its numerous competitors, stood 
clearly and totally exempted from the sins 
of an undue selfishness. And, accordingly, 
there are certain commodious falsehoods 
occasionally practised in this department of 
human affairs. There are, for example, cer- 
tain dexterous and gainful evasions, whereby 
the payers of tribute are enabled, at times, 
to make their escape from the eagle eye of 
the exactors of tribute. There are even cer- 
tain contests of ingenuity between indi vidual 
traders, where in the higgling of a very keen 
and anxious negociation, each of them is 
tempted in talking of offers and prices, and 
the reports of fluctuations in home and 
foreign markets, to say the things which are 
not. You must assuredly know, that these, 
and such as these, then, have introduced a 
certain quantity of what may be called shuf- 
fling, into the communications of the trad- 
ing world — insomuch, that the simplicity of 
yea, yea, and nay, nay, is in some degree 
exploded; there is a kind of understood tole- 
ration established for certain modes of ex- 
pression, which could not, we are much 
afraid, stand the rigid scrutiny of the great 
day ; and there is an abatement of confidence 
between man and man, implying, we doubt, 



goes to extend most fearfully the condemna- 
tion that is due to all liars, who shall have 
their part in the lake that burnetii with fire 
and brimstone. And who can compute the 
effect of all this on the young and yet un- 
practised observer? Who does not see, that 
it must go to reduce the tone of his princi- 
ples; and to involve him in many a delicate 
struggle between the morality he has learned 
from his catechism, and the morality he sees 
in the counting-house ; and to obliterate, in 
his mind, the distinctions between right and 
wrong; and, at length, to reconcile his con- 
science to a sin, which, like every other, 
deserves the wrath and the curse of God; 
and to make him tamper with a direct com- 
mandment, in such a way, as that falsehoods 
and frauds might be nothing more in his 
estimation, than the peccadilloes of an in- 
nocent compliance with the current prac- 
tices and moralities of the world ? Here then 
is a point, at which the way of those who 
conform to this world, diverges from the 
way of those peculiar people who are re- 
deemed from all iniquity, and are thorough- 
ly furnished unto all good works. Here is a 
grievous occasion to fall. Here is a com- 
petition between the service of God and the 
service of Mammon. Here is the exhibition 
of another offence, and the bringing forward 
of another temptation, to those who are en- 
tering on the business of the world, little 
adverted to, we fear, by those who live in 
utter carelessness of their own souls, and 
never spend a thought or a sigh about the 
immortality of others— but most distinctly 
singled out by the text as a crime of fore- 
most magnitude in the eye of Him who 
judgeth righteously. 

And before we quit the subject of such 
offences as take place in ordinary trade, let 
us just advert to one example of it— not so 
much for the frequency of its occurrence, 
as for the way that it stands connected in 
principle with a very general, and,, we be- 
lieve, a very mischievous offence, that takes 
place in domestic society. It is neither, 
you will observe, the avarice nor the sel- 
fishness of our nature, which forms the only 
obstruction in the way of one man dealing 
plainly with another. There is another 
obstruction, founded on a far more pleasing 
and amiable principle— even on that deli- 
cacy of feeling, in virtue of which, one man 
cannot bear to wound or to mortify another. 
It would require, for instance, a very rare, 
and, certainly, not a very enviable degree 
of hardihood, to tell another, without pain, 
that you did not think him worthy of being 
trusted. And yet, in the doings of mer- 
chandise, this is the very trial of delicacy 
which sometimes offers itself. The man 
with whom you stand committed to as 
great an extent as you count to be advisa- 
ble, would like, perhaps, to try your conn- 



VII.] 



VITIATING INFLUENCE OF HIGHER UPON LOWER ORDERS. 



275 



dence in him^ and his own credit with you, 
a little farther ; and he comes back upon 
you with a fresh order ; and you secretly 
have no desire to link any more of your 
property with his speculation ; and the dif- 
ficulty is, how to get the application in 
question disposed of; and you feel that by 
far the pleasantest way, to all the parties 
concerned, would be, to make him believe 
that you refuse the application, not because 
you will not comply, but because you can- 
not — for that you have no more of the ar- 
ticle he wants from you upon hand. And 
it would only be putting your own soul to 
hazard, did you personally, and by your- 
self, make this communication: but you 
select, perhaps, as the organ of it, some 
agent or underling of your establishment, 
who knows it to be false ; and to avoid the 
soreness of a personal encounter with the 
man whom you are to disappoint, you de- 
volve the whole business of this lying apol- 
ogy upon others ; and thus do you continue 
to shift this oppressive burden away from 
you — or, in other words, to save your own 
delicacy, you count not, and you care not, 
about another's damnation. 

Now, what we call upon you to mark, is 
the perfect identity of principle between 
this case of making a brother to offend, and 
another case which obtains, we have heard, 
to a very great extent, among the most gen- 
teel and opulent of our city families. In 
this case, you put a lie into the mouth of a 
dependent, and that, for the purpose of 
protecting your substance from such an 
application as might expose it to hazard 
or diminution. In the second case, you 
put a lie into the mouth of a dependent, 
and that, for the purpose of protecting 
your time from such an encroachment 
as you would not feel to be convenient 
or agreeable. And, in both cases, you 
are led to hold out this offence by a 
certain delicacy of temperament, in vir- 
tue of which, you can neither give a man 
plainly to understand, that you are not wil- 
ling to trust him, nor can you give him to 
understand that you count his company to 
be an interruption. But, in both the one 
and the other example, look to the little 
account that is made of a brother's or of a 
sister's eternity ; behold the guilty task that 
is thus unmercifully laid upon one who is 
shortly to appear before the judgment-seat 
of Christ ; think of the entanglement which 
is thus made to beset the path of a creature 
who is unperishable. That, at the shrine 
of Mammon, such a bloody sacrifice should 
be rendered by some of his unrelenting vo- 
taries, is not to be wondered at ; but that 
the shrine of elegance and fashion should 
be bathed in blood — that soft and sentimen- 
tal ladyship should put forth her hand to 
such an enormity — that she who can sigh 
*o gently, and shed her graceful tear over 



the sufferings of others, should thus be ac- 
cessary to the second and more awful death 
of her own domestics — that one who looks 
the mildest and the loveliest of human be- 
ings, should exact obedience to a mandate 
which carries wrath, and tribulation, and 
anguish, in its train — O! how it should 
confirm every Christian in his defiance to 
the authority of fashion, and lead him to 
spurn at all its folly, and at all its worth- 
lessness. 

And it is quite in vain to say, that the ser- 
vant whom you thus employ as the deputy 
of your falsehood, can possibly execute the 
commission without the conscience being 
at all tainted or defiled by it ; that a simple 
cottage maid can so sophisticate the matter, 
as, without any violence to her original 
principles, to utter the language of what 
she assuredly knows to be a downright lie ; 
that she, humble and untutored soul, can 
sustain no injury when thus made to tam- 
per with the plain English of these realms ; 
that she can at all satisfy herself, how, by 
the prescribed utterance of " not at home," 
she is not pronouncing such words as are 
substantially untrue, but merely using them 
in another and perfectly understood mean- 
ing — and which, according to their modern 
translation, denote, that the person of whom 
she is thus speaking, instead of being away 
from home, is secretly lurking in one of the 
most secure and intimate of its recepta- 
cles. You may try to darken and trans- 
form this piece of casuistry as you will ; 
and work up your own minds into the peace- 
able conviction that it is all right, and as it 
should be. But be very certain, that where 
the moral sense of your domestic is not al- 
ready overthrown, there is, at least one bo- 
som within which you have raised a war 
of doubts and difficulties ; and where, if the 
victory be on your side, it will be on the 
side of him who is the great enemy of righ- 
teousness. There is, at least, one person 
along the line of this conveyance of deceit, 
who condemneth herself in that which she 
alloweth ; who, in the language of Paul, es- 
teeming the practice to be unclean, to her 
will it be unclean ; who will perform hertask 
with the offence of her own conscience, 
and to whom, therefore, it will indeed be 
evil : who cannot render obedience in this 
matter to her earthly superior, but by an 
act, in which she does not stand clear and 
unconscious of guilt before God ; and with 
whom, therefore, the sad consequence of 
what we can call nothing else than a bar- 
barous combination against the principles 
and the prospects of the lower orders, is — 
that as she has not cleaved fully unto the 
Lord, and has not kept by the service of 
the one master, and has not forsaken all at 
His bidding, she cannot be the disciple of 
Christ. 

The aphorism, that he who offendeth in 



276 



VITIATING INFLUENCE OF HIGHER UPON LOWER ORDERS, 



[DISC. 



one point is guilty of all, tells us something 
more than of the way in which God ad- 
judges condemnation to the disobedient. 
It also tells us of the way in which one in- 
dividual act of sinfulness operates upon our 
moral nature. It is altogether an erroneous 
view of the commandments, to look upon 
them as so many observances to which we 
are bound by as many distinct and inde- 
pendent ties of obligation— insomuch, that 
the transgression of one of them maybe 
brought about by the dissolution of one 
separate tie, and may leave all the others, 
with as entire a constraining influence and 
authority as before. The truth is, that the 
commandments ought rather to be looked 
upon as branching out from one great and 
general tie of obligation ; and that there is 
no such thing as loosening the hold of one 
of them upon the conscience, but by the 
unfastening of that tie which binds them all 
upon the conscience. So that if one mem- 
ber in the system of practical righteousness 
be made to sutler, all the other members 
suffer along with it ; and if one decision of 
the moral sense be thwarted, the organ of 
the moral sense is permanently impaired, 
and a leaven of iniquity infused into all its 
other decisions ; and if one suggestion of 
this inward monitor be stifled, a general 
shock is given to his authority over the 
whole man ; and if one of the least com- 
mandments of the law is left unfulfilled, the 
law itself is brought down from its rightful 
ascendency ; and thus it is, that one act of 
disobedience may be the commencement 
and the token of a systematic ana universal 
rebelliousness of the heart against God. It 
is this which gives such a wide-wasting ma- 
lignity to each of the separate offences on 
which we have now expatiated. It is this 
which so multiplies the means and the pos- 
sibilities of corruption in the world. It is 
thus that, at every one point in the inter- 
course of human society, there may be 
struck out a fountain of poisonous emana- 
tion on all who approach it ; and think not, 
therefore, that under each of the examples 
we have given, we were only contending 
for the preservation of one single feature in 
the character of him who stands exposed to 
this world's offences. We felt it, in fact, to 
be a contest for his eternity ; and that the 
case involved in it his general condition 
with God ; and that he who leads the young 
into a course of dissipation — or that he who 
tampers with their impressions of sabbath 
sacredness — or that he who, either in the 
walks of business, or in the services of the 
family, makes them the agents of deceitful- 
ness — or that he, in short, who tempts them 
to transgress in any one thing, has, in fact, 
poured such a pervading taint into their 
moral constitution, as to spoil or corrupt 
them in all things ; and that thus, upon one 
solitary occasion, or by the exhibition of one 



I particular offence, a mischief may be done 
equivalent to the total destruction of a hu- 
man soul, or to the blotting out of its pros- 
pects for immortality. 

And let us just ask a master or a mistress, 
who can thus make free with the moral 
principle of their servants in one instance, 
how they can look for pure or correct prin- 
ciple from them in other instances? "What 
right have they to complain of unfaithful- 
ness against themselves, who have delibe- 
rately seduced another into a habit of un- 
faithfulness against God ? Are they so ut- 
terly unskilled in the mysteries of our na- 
ture, as not to perceive, that if a man gather 
hardihood enough to break the Sabbath in 
opposition to his own conscience, this very 
hardihood will avail him to the breaking of 
other obligations ? — that he whom, for their 
advantage, they have so exercised, as to fill 
his conscience with offence towards his 
God, will not scruple, for his own advan- 
tage, so to exercise himself, as to fill his 
conscience with offence towards his master ? 
— that the servant whom you have taught 
to lie, has gotten such rudiments of educa- 
tion at your hand, as that, without any fur- 
ther help, he can now teach himself to pur- 
loin? — and yet nothing more frequent than 
loud and angry complainings against the 
treachery of servants ; as if, in the general 
wreck of their other principles, a principle 
of consideration for the good and interest of 
their employer— and who, at the same time, 
has been their seducer — was to survive in 
all its power, and all its sensibility. It is 
just such a retribution as was to be looked 
for. It is a recoil upon their own heads of 
the mischief which they themselves have 
originated. It is the temporal part of the 
punishment which they have to bear for the 
sin of our text, but not the whole of it ; far 
the better for them that both person and 
property were cast into the sea, than that 
they should stand the reckoning of that day, 
when called to give an account of the souls 
that they have murdered, and the blood of 
so mighty a destruction is required at their 
hands. 

The evil against which we have just pro- 
tested, is an outrage of far greater enormity 
than tyrant or oppressor can inflict, in the 
prosecution of his worst designs against the 
political rights and liberties of the common- 
wealth. The very semblance of such de- 
signs will summon every patriot to his post 
of observation ; and, from a thousand watch- 
towers of alarm, will the outcry of freedom 
in danger be heard throughout the land. 
But there is a conspiracy of a far more ma- 
lignant influence upon the destinies of the 
species that is now going on ; and which 
seems to call forth no indignant spirit, and 
to bring no generous exclamation along 
with it. Throughout all the recesses of 
private and domestic history, there is an 



VII.] 



VITIATING INFLUENCE OF HIGHER UPON LOWER ORDERS. 



277 



ascendency of rank and station against 
which no stern republican is ever heard to 
lift his voice — though it be an ascendency 
so exercised, as to be of most noxious ope- 
ration to the dearest hopes and best interests 
of humanity. There is a cruel combination 
of the great against the majesty of the peo- 
ple — we mean the majesty of the people's 
worth. There is a haughty unconcern about 
an inheritance, which, by an unalienable 
right, should be theirs — we mean their fu- 
ture and everlasting inheritance. There is 
a deadly invasion made on their rights — 
we mean their rights of conscience ; and, 
in this our land of boasted privileges, are 
the low trampled upon by the high — we 
mean trampled into all the degradation of 
guilt and worthlessness. They are utterly 
bereft of that homage which ought to be 
rendered to the dignity of their immortal 
nature ; and to minister to the avarice of 
an imperious master, or to spare the sickly 
delicacy of the fashionables in our land, are 
the truth and the piety of our population, 
and all the virtues of their eternity, most 
unfeelingly plucked away from them. It 
belongs to others to fight the battle of their 
privileges in time. But who that looks with 
a calculating eye on their duration that 
never ends, can repress an alarm of a higher 
order 1 It belongs to others generously to 
struggle for the place and the adjustment 
of the lower orders in the great vessel of 
the state. But, surely, the question of their 
place in eternity is of mightier concern than 
how they are to sit and be accommodated 
in that pathway vehicle which takes them 
to their everlasting habitations. 

Christianity is, in one sense, the greatest 
of all levellers. It looks to the elements, 
and not to the circumstantials of humanity; 
and regarding as altogether superficial and 
temporary the distinctions of this fleeting 
pilgrimage, it fastens on those points of as- 
similation which liken the king upon the 
throne to the very humblest of his subject 
population. They are alike in the naked- 
ness of their birth. They are alike in the 
sureness of their decay. They are alike in 
the agonies of their dissolution. And after 
the one is tombed in sepulchral magnifi- 
cence, and the other is laid in his sod- wrapt 
grave, are they most fearfully alike in the 
corruption to which they moulder. But it 
is with the immortal nature of each that 
Christianity has to do ; and, in both the one 
and the other, does it behold a nature alike 
forfeited by guilt, and alike capable of being 
restored by the grace of an offered salva- 
tion. And never do the pomp and the cir- 
cumstance of externals appear more humi- 
liating, than when, looking onwards to the 
day of resurrection, we behold the sovereign 
standing without his crown, and trembling, 
with the subject by his side, at the bar of 
heaven's majesty. There the master and 



the servant will be brought to their reckon- 
ing together; and when the one is tried 
upon the guilt and the malignant influence 
of his Sabbath companies — and is charged 
with the profane and careless habit of his 
household establishment — and is reminded 
how he kept both himself and his domes- 
tics from the solemn ordinance — and is made 
to perceive the fearful extent of the moral 
and spiritual mischief which he has wrought 
as the irreligious head of an irreligious fa- 
mily—and how, among other things he, un- 
der a system of fashionable hypocrisy, so 
tampered with another's principles as to de- 
file his conscience, and to destroy him — O ! 
how tremendously will the little brief au- 
thority in which he now plays his fantastic 
tricks, turn to his own condemnation ; for, 
than thus abuse his authority, it were bet- 
ter for him that a millstone were hanged 
about his neck, and he were cast into the 
sea. 

And how comes it, we ask, that any mas- 
ter is armed with a power so destructive 
over the immortals who are around him ? 
God has given him no such power: The 
state has not given it to him. There is no 
law, either human or divine, by which he 
can enforce any order upon his servants to 
an act of falsehood, or to an act of impiety. 
Should any such act of authority be at- 
tempted on the part of the master, it should 
be followed up on the part of the servant 
by an act of disobedience. Should your 
master or mistress bid you say not at home, 
when you know that they are at home, it 
is your duty to refuse compliance with such 
an order: and if it be asked, how can this 
matter be adjusted after such a violent and 
alarming innovation on the laws of fashion- 
able intercourse, we answer, just by the sim- 
ple substitution of truth for falsehood— just 
by prescribing the utterance of, engaged, 
which is a fact, instead of the utterance of, 
not at home, which is a lie— just by holding 
the principles of your servant to be of higher 
account than the false delicacies of your ac- 
quaintance — just by a bold and vigorous re- 
currence to the simplicity of nature — just 
by determinedly doing what is right, though 
the example of a whole host were against 
you ; and by giving impulse to the current 
of example, when it happens to be moving 
in a proper direction. And here we are 
happy to say that fashion has of late been 
making a capricious and accidental move- 
ment on the side of principle — and to be 
blunt, and open, and manly, is now on the 
fair way to be fashionable — and a temper 
of a homelier quality is beginning to infuse 
itself into the luxuriousness, and the effemi- 
nacy, and the palling and excessive complai- 
sance of genteel society — and the staple of 
cultivated manners is improving in firmness, 
and frankness, and honesty, and may, at 
length, by the aid of a principle of Chris- 



278 VITIATING INFLUENCE OF HIGHER UF0N LOWER ORDERS. 



tian rectitude, be so interwoven with the 
cardinal virtues, as to present a different 
texture altogether from the soft and silken 
degeneracy of modern days. 

And that we may not appear the cham- 
pions of an insurrection against the autho- 
rity of masters, let us further say, that 
while it is the duty of clerk or apprentice to 
refuse the doing of weekday work on the Sab- 
bath, and while it is the duty of servants to 
refuse the utterance of a prescribed falsehood, 
and while it is the duty of every dependent, 
in the service of his master, to serve him 
only in the Lord — yet this very principle, 
tending as it may to a rare and occasional 
act of disobedience, is also the principle 
which renders every servant who adheres 
to it a perfect treasure of fidelity, and at- 
tachment, and general obedience. This is 
the way in which to obtain a credit for his 
refusal, and to stamp upon it a noble con- 
sistency. In this way he will, even to the 
mind of an ungodly master, make up for 
all his particularities : and should he be 
what, if a Christian, he will be ; should he 
be, at all times, the most alert in service, 
and the most patient of provocation, and 
the most cordial in affection, and the most 
scrupulously honest in the charge and cus- 
tody of all that is committed to him — then 
let the post of drudgery at which he toils 
be humble as it may, the contrast between 
the meanness of his office and the dignity 
of his character will only heighten the re- 
verence that is due to principle, and make 
it more illustrious. His scruples may, at 
first, be the topics of displeasure, and after- 
wards the topics of occasional levity ; but, 
in spite of himself, will his employer be at 
length constrained to look upon them with 
respectful toleration. The servant will be 
to the master a living epistle of Christ, and 
he may read there what he has not yet per- 
ceived in the letter of the New Testament. 
He may read, in the person of his own do- 
mestic, the power and the truth of Chris- 
tianity. He may positively stand in awe 
of his own hired servant — and, regarding 
his bosom as a sanctuary of worth which it 
were monstrous to violate, will he feel, when 
tempted to offer one command of impiety, 
that he cannot, that he dare not. 

And before we conclude, let us, if possi- 
ble, try to rebuke the wealthy out of their 
unfeeling indifference to the souls of the 
poor, by the example of the Saviour. Let 
those who look on the immortality of the 
poor as beneath their concern, only look 
unto Christ — to him who, for the sake of 
the poorest of us all, became poor himself, 
that we, through his poverty, might be 
made rich. Let them think how the prin- 
ciple of all these offences which we have 
been attempting to expose, is in the direct 
face of that principle which prompted, at 
first, and which still presides over> the 



[disc. 

whole of the gospel dispensation. Let them 
learn a higher reverence for the eternity 
of those beneath them, by thinking of him, 
who, to purchase an inheritance for the 
poor, and to provide them with the bless- 
ings of a preached gospel, unrobed him of 
all his greatness; and descended himself 
to the lot and labours of poverty ; and toiled, 
to the beginning of his public ministry, at 
the work of a carpenter ; and submitted to 
all the horrors of a death which was aggra- 
vated by the burden of a world's atone- 
ment, and made inconceivably severe by 
their being infused into it all the bitter of 
expiation. Think, 0 think, when some petty 
design of avarice or vanity would lead you 
to forget the imperishable souls of those 
who are beneath you, that you are setting 
yourselves in diametric opposition to that 
which lieth nearest to the heart of the Sa- 
viour; that you are countervailing the whole 
tendency of his redemption ; that you are 
thwarting the very object of that enterprise 
for which all heaven is represented as in 
motion — and angels are with wonder look- 
ing on — and God the Father laid an ap- 
pointment on the Son of his love — and he, 
the august personage in whom the mag- 
nificent train of prophecy, from the begin- 
ning of the world, has its theme and its 
fulfilment, at length came amongst us, in 
shrouded majesty, and was led to the cross, 
like a lamb for the slaughter, and bowed 
his head in agony, and gave up the ghost. 

And here let us address one word more 
to the masters and mistresses of families. 
By adopting the reformations to which we 
have been urging you, you may do good 
to the cause of Christianity, and yet not ad- 
vance, by a single hair-breadth, the Chris- 
tianity of your own souls. It is not by this 
one reformation, or indeed, by any given 
number of reformations, that you are saved. 
It is by believing in Christ that men are saved. 
You may escape, it is sure, a higher degree 
of punishment, but you will not escape 
damnation. You may do good to the souls 
of your servants, by a rigid observance of 
the- lesson of this day. But we seek the 
good of your own souls, also, and we pro- 
nounce upon them that they are in a state 
of death, till one great act be performed, 
and one act, too, which does not consist of 
any number of particular acts, or particular 
reformations. What shall I do to be saved ? 
Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou 
shalt be saved. And he who believeth not, 
the wrath of God abideth on him. Do this, 
if you want to make the great and impor- 
tant transition for yourselves. Do this if 
you want your own name to be blotted 
out of the book of condemnation. If you 
seek to have your own persons justified 
before God, submit to the righteousness of 
God— even that righteousness which is 
through the faith of Christ, and is unto all 



ON THE LOVE OF MONEY. 279 



VIII.] 

and upon all who believe. This is the turn- 
ing point of your acceptance with the Law- 
giver. And at this step, also, in the history 
of your souls, will there be applied to 
you a power of motive, and will you be en- 
dowed with an obedient sensibility to the 
influence of motive, which will make it the 
turning point of a new heart and a new 



character. The particular reformation that 
we have now been urging will be one of a 
crowd of other reformations ; and, in the 
spirit of him who pleased not himself, but 
gave up his life for others, will you forego 
all the desires of selfishness and vanity, and 
look not merely to your own things, but 
also to the things of others. 



DISCOURSE VIII. 

On the Love of Money. 

" If I have made gold my hope, or have said to the fine gold, Thou art my confidence; If I rejoiced because 
my wealth was great, and because mine hand had gotten much : If I beheld the sun when it shined or 
the moon walking in brightness ; and my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my 
hand ; this also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge ; for I should have denied the God that is 
above." — Job xxxi. 24 — 28. 



What is worthy of remark in this pas- 
sage is, that a certain affection only known 
among the votaries of Paganism, should 
be classed under the same character and 
have the same condemnation with an affec- 
tion, not only known, but allowed, nay 
cherished into habitual supremacy, all over 
Christendom. How universal is it among 
those who are in pursuit of wealth, to 
make gold their hope, and among those 
who are in possession of wealth, to make 
fine gold their confidence ? Yet we are here 
told that this is virtually as complete a re- 
nunciation of God as to practise some of 
the worst charms of idolatry. And it might 
perhaps serve to unsettle the vanity of those 
who, unsuspicious of the disease that is in 
their hearts, are wholy given over to this 
world, and wholly without alarm in their 
anticipations of another, — could we con- 
vince them that the most reigning and re- 
sistless desire by which they are actuated, 
stamps the same perversity on them, in the 
sight of God, as he sees to be in those who 
are worshippers of the sun in the firma- 
ment, or are offering incense to the moon, 
as the queen of heaven. 

We recoil from an idolater, as from one 
who labours under a great moral derange- 
ment, in suffering his regards to be carried 
away from the true God to an idol. But, 
is it not just the same derangement, on the 
part of man, that he should love any cre- 
ated good, and in the enjoyment of it lose 
sight of the Creator— that he should delight 
himself with the use and the possession of 
a gift, and be unaffected by the circum- 
stance of its having been put into his hands 
by a giver— that thoroughly absorbed with 
the present and the sensible gratification, 
there should be no room left for the move- 
ments of duty or regard to the Being who 
furnished him with the materials, and en- 



dowed him with the organs, of every grati- 
fication, — that he should thus lavish all his 
desires on the surrounding materialism, 
and fetch from it all his delights, while the 
thought of him who formed it is habitually 
absent from his heart — that in the play 
of those attractions that subsist between 
him and the various objects in the neigh- 
bourhood of his person, there should be the 
same want of reference to God, as there is 
in the play of those attractions which sub- 
sist between a piece of unconscious matter 
and the other matter that is around it — , 
that all the influences which operate upon 
the human will should emanate from so 
many various points in the mechanism of 
what is formed, but that no practical or 
ascendant influence should come down 
upon it from the presiding and the preserv- 
ing Deity ? Why, if such be man, he could 
not be otherwise, though there were no 
Deity. The part he sustains in the world 
is the very same that it would have been 
had the world sprung into being of itself, 
or without an originating mind had main- 
tained its being from eternity. He just puts 
forth the evolutions of his own nature, as 
one of the component individuals in a vast 
independent system of nature, made up of 
many parts and many individuals. In hun- 
gering for what is agreeable to his senses, 
or recoiling from what is bitter or unsuit- 
able to them, he does so without thinking 
of God, or borrowing any impulse to his 
own will from any thing he knows or be- 
lieves to be the will of God. Religion has 
just as little to do with those daily move- 
ments of his which are voluntary, as it has 
to do with the growth of his body, which 
is involuntary ; or, as it has to do, in other 
words, with the progress and the pheno- 
mena of vegetation. With a mind that 
ought to know God, and a conscience that 



280 



ON THE LOVE OF MONEY. 



ought to award to him the supreme juris- 
diction, he lives as effectually without him 
as if he had no mind and no conscience ; 
and, bating a few transient visitations of 
thought, and a few regularities of outward 
and mechanical observation, do we behold 
man running, and willing, and preparing, 
and enjoying, just as if there was no other 
portion than the creature — just as if the 
world, and its visible elements, formed the 
all with which he had to do. 

I wish to impress upon you the distinc- 
tion that there is between the love of mo- 
ney, and the love of what money pur- 
chases. Either of these affections may 
equally displace God from the heart. But 
there is a malignity and an inveteracy of 
atheism in the former which does not be- 
long to the latter, and in virtue of which it 
may be seen that the love of money is, in- 
deed, the root of all evil. 

When we indulge the love of that which 
is purchased by money, the materials of 
gratification and the organs of gratification 
are present with each other— just as in the 
enjoyments of the inferior animals, and 
just as in all the simple and immediate en- 
joyments of man; such as the tasting of 
food, or the smelling of a flower. There 
is an adaptation of the senses to certain 
external objects, and there is a pleasure 
arising out of that adaptation, and it is a 
pleasure which may be felt by man, along 
with a right and a full infusion of godli- 
ness. The primitive Christians, for exam- 
ple, ate their meat with gladness and sin- 
gleness of heart, praising God. But, in the 
case of every unconverted man, the plea- 
sure has no such accompaniment. He car- 
ries in his heart no recognition of that 
hand, by the opening of which it is, that 
the means and the materials of enjoyment 
are placed within his reach. The matter 
of the enjoyment is all with which he is 
conversant. The Author of the enjoyment 
is unheeded. The avidity with which he 
rushes onward to any of the direct gratifi- 
cations of nature, bears a resemblance to 
the avidity with which one of the lower 
creation rushes to its food, or to its water, 
or to the open field, where it gambols in 
all the wantonness of freedom, and finds 
a high-breathed joy in the very strength 
and velocity of its movements. And the 
atheism of the former, who has a mind for 
the sense and knowledge of his Creator, is 
often as entire as the atheism of the latter, 
who has it not. Man, who ought to look 
to the primary cause of all his blessings, 
because he is capable of seeing thus far, is 
often as blind to God, in the midst of en- 
ioyment, as the animal who is not capable 
of seeing him. He can trace the stream to 
its fountain ; but still he drinks of the 
stream with as much greediness of plea- 
sure, and as little recognition of its source, 



as the animal beneath him. In other wordSj 
his atheism, while tasting the bounties of 
Providence, is just as complete, as is the 
atheism of the inferior animals. But theirs 
proceeds from their incapacity of knowing 
God. His proceeds from his not liking to 
retain God in his knowledge. He may 
come under the power of godliness, if he 
would. But he chooses rather that the 
power of sensuality should lord it over 
him, and his whole man is engrossed with 
the objects of sensuality. 

But a man differs from an animal in be- 
ing something more than a sensitive being. 
He is also a reflective being. He has the 
power of thought, and inference, and anti- 
cipation, to signalize him above the beasts 
of the field, or of the forest ; and yet will 
it be found, in the case of every natural 
man, that the exercise of those powers, so 
far from, having carried him nearer, has 
only widened his departure from God, and 
given a more deliberate and wilful charac- 
ter to his atheism, than if he had been with- 
out them altogether. 

In virtue of the powers of a mind which 
belong to him, he can carry his thoughts 
beyond the present desires and the pre- 
sent gratification. He can calculate on the 
visitations of future desire, and on the 
means of its gratification. He cannot 
only follow out the impulse of hunger that 
is now upon him 5 he can look onwards to 
the successive and recurring impulses of 
hunger which await him, and he can de- 
vise expedients for relieving it. Out of that 
great stream of supply, which comes direct 
from Heaven to earth, for the sustenance 
of all its living generations, he can draw oft" 
and appropriate a separate rill of convey- 
ance, and direct it into a reservoir for him- 
self. He can enlarge the capacity, or he 
can strengthen the embankments of this 
reservoir. By doing the one, he augments 
his proportion of this common tide of 
wealth which circulates through the world, 
and by doing the other, he augments his 
security for holding it in perpetual posses- 
sion. The animal who drinks out of the 
stream thinks not whence it issues. But 
man thinks of the reservoir which yields 
to him his portion of it. And he looks no 
further. He thinks not that to fill it, there 
must be a great and original fountain, out 
of which there issueth a mighty flood of 
abundance for the purpose of distribution 
among all the tribes and families of the 
world. He stops short at the secondary 
and artificial fabric which he himself hath 
formed, and out of which, as from a spring, 
he draws his own peculiar enjoyments ; 
and never thinks either of his own pecu- 
liar supply, fluctuating with the variations 
of the primary spring, or of connecting 
these variations with the will of the great 
but unseen director of all things, It is true, 



VIII.] 



ON THE LOVE OF MONEY. 



281 



that if this main and originating fountain 
be, at any time, less copious in its emis- 
sion, he will have less to draw from it to 
his own reservoir; and in that very pro- 
portion will his share of the bounties of 
Providence be reduced. But still it is to 
the well, or receptacle, of his own striking 
out that he looks, as his main security for 
the relief of nature's wants, and the abun- 
dant supply of nature's enjoyments. It is 
upon his own work that he depends in this 
matter, and not on the work or the will of 
him who is the author of nature; who 
giveth rain from heaven, and fruitful sea- 
sons, and filleth every heart with food and 
gladness. And thus it is, that the reason 
of man, and the retrospective power of 
man, still fail to carry him, by an ascend- 
ing process to the First Cause. He stops 
at the instrumental cause, which, by his 
own wisdom and his own power, he has 
put into operation. In a word, the man's 
understanding is over-run with atheism, as 
well as his desires. The intellectual as well 
as the sensitive part of his constitution 
seems to be infected with it. When, like 
the instinctive and unreflecting animal, he 
engages in the act of direct enjoyment, he 
is like it, too, in its atheism. When he 
rises above the animal, and, in the exercise 
of his higher and larger faculties, he en- 
gages in the act of providing for enjoyment, 
he still carries his atheism along with him. 

A sum of money is, in all its functions, 
equivalent to such a reservoir. Take one 
year with another, and the annual con- 
sumption of the world cannot exceed the 
annual produce which issues from the 
storehouse of him who is the great and the 
bountiful Provider of all its families. The 
money that is in any man's possession re- 
presents the share which he can appro- 
priate to himself of this produce. If it be 
a large sum it is like a capacious reservoir 
on the bank of the river of abundance. If 
it be laid out on firm and stable securities, 
still it is like a firmly embanked reservoir. 
The man who toils to increase his money 
is like a man who toils to enlarge the ca- 
pacity of his reservoir. The man who sus- 
pects a flaw in his securities, or who appre- 
hends, in the report of failures and fluctua- 
tions, that his money is all to flow away 
from him, is like a man who apprehends a 
flaw in the embankments of his reservoir. 

Meanwhile, in all the care that is thus 
expended, either on the money or on the 
magazine, the originating source, out of 
which there is imparted to the one all its 
real worth, or there is imparted to the other 
all its real fulness, is scarcely ever thought 
of. Let God turn the earth into a barren 
desert, and the money ceases to be con- 
vertible to any purpose of enjoyment; or 
let him lock up that magazine of great and 
general supply, out of which he showers 
2 N 



abundance among our habitations, and ail 
the subordinate magazines formed beside 
the wonted stream of liberality, would re 
main empty. But all this is forgotten by the 
vast majority of our unthoughtful and un- 
reflecting species. The patience of God is 
still unexhausted ; and the seasons still roll 
in kindly succession over the heads of an 
ungrateful generation; and that period, 
when the machinery of our present sys- 
tem shall stop and be taken to pieces has 
not yet arrived ; and that Spirit, who will 
not always strive with the children of men, 
is still prolonging his experiment on the 
powers and perversities of our moral na- 
ture ; and still suspending the edict of dis- 
solution, by which this earth and these 
heavens are at length to pass away. So 
that the sun still shines upon us ; and the 
clouds still drop upon us ; and the earth 
still puts forth the bloom and the beauty 
of its luxuriance ; and all the ministers of 
heaven's liberality still walk their annual 
round, and scatter plenty over the face of 
an alienated world; and the whole of na- 
ture continues as smiling in promise, and 
as sure in fulfilment, as in the days of our 
forefathers ; and out of her large and uni- 
versal granary is there, in every returning 
year, as rich a conveyance of aliment as be- 
fore, to the populous family in whose be- 
half it is opened. But it is the business of 
many among that population, each to erect 
his own separate granary, and to replenish 
it out of the general store, and to feed him- 
self and his dependants out of it. And he 
is right in so doing. But he is not right 
in looking to his own peculiar receptacle, 
as if it were the first and the emanating 
fountain of all his enjoyments. He is not 
right in thus idolising the work of his own 
hands — awarding no glory and no confi- 
dence to him in whose hands is the key 
of that great storehouse, out of which 
every lesser storehouse of man derives its 
fulness. He is not right, in labouring after 
the money which purchaseth all things, to 
avert the earnestness of his regard from 
the Being who provides all things. He is 
not right, in thus building his security on 
that which is subordinate, unheeding and 
unmindful of him who is supreme. It is 
not right, that silver, and gold, though un- 
shaped into statuary, should still be doing, 
in this enlightened land, what the images 
of Paganism once did. It is not right, that 
they should thus supplant the deference 
which is owing to the God and the governor 
of all things — or that each man amongst 
us should in the secret homage of trust and 
satisfaction which he renders to his bills, 
and his deposits, and his deeds of property 
and possession, endow these various arti- 
cles with the same moral ascendency over 
his heart, as the household gods of anti- 
quity had over the idolaters of antiquity— 



282 



ON THE LOVE OF MONEY. 



[DISC. 



'making them as effectually usurp the 
place of the Divinity, and dethrone the 
one Monarch of heaven and earth from 
that pre-eminence of trust and of affection 
that belongs to him. 

He who makes a god of his pleasure, 
renders to this idol the homage of his 
senses. He who makes a god of his wealth, 
renders to this idol the homage of his 
mind ; and he, therefore, of the two, is the 
more hopeless and determined idolater. 
The former is goaded on to his idolatry, 
b)' the power of appetite. The latter cul- 
tivates his with wilful and deliberate per- 
severance; consecrates his very highest 
powers to its service • embarks in it, not 
with the heat of passion, but with the 
coolness of steady and calculating princi- 
ple; fully gives up his reason and his time, 
and all the faculties of his understanding, 
as well as all the desires of his heart, to 
the great object of a fortune in this world; 
makes the acquirement of gain the settled 
aim, and the prosecution of that aim the 
settled habit of his existence; sits the 
whole day long at the post of his ardent 
and unremitting devotions ; and, as he la- 
bours at the desk of his counting-house, 
has his soul just as effectually seduced 
from the living God to an object distinct 
from him, and contrary to him, as if the 
ledger over which he was bending was a 
book of mystical characters, written in ho- 
nour of some golden idol placed before 
him, and with a view to render this idol 
propitious to himself and to his family. 
Baal and Moloch were not more substan- 
tially the gods of rebellious Israel, than 
Mammon is the god of all his affections. 
To the fortune he has reared, or is rearing, 
for himself and his descendants, he ascribes 
all the power and all the independence of 
a divinity. With the wealth he has gotten 
by his own hands, does he feel himself as 
independent of God, as the Pagan does, 
who, happy in the fancied protection of an 
image made with his own hands, suffers no 
disturbance to his quiet, from any thought 
of the real but the unknown Deity. His 
confidence is in his treasure, and not in 
God. It is there that he places all his 
safety and all his sufficiency. It is not on 
the Supreme Being, conceived in the light 
of a real and a personal agent, that he 
places his dependence. It is on a mute 
and material statue of his own erection. It 
is wealth, which stands to him in the 
place of God — to which he awards the 
credit of all his enjoyments — which he 
looks to as the emanating fountain of all 
his present sufficiency — from which he 
gathers his fondest expectations of all the 
bright and fancied blessedness that is yet 
before him — on which he rests as the firm- 
est and stablest foundation of all that the 
heart can wish or the eye can long after. 



both for himself and for his children. It 
matters not for him, that all his enjoyment 
comes from a primary fountain, and that 
his wealth is only an intermediate reservoir. 
It matters not to him, that, if God were to 
set a seal upon the upper storehouse in 
heaven, or to blast and to burn up all the 
fruitfulness of earth, he would reduce, to 
the worthlessness of dross, all the silver 
and the gold that abound in it. Still the 
gold and the silver are his gods. His own 
fountain is between him and the foun- 
tain of original supply. His wealth is be- 
tween him and God. Its various lodging 
places, whether in the bank, or in the place 
of registration, or in the depository of wills 
and title deeds— these are the sanctuaries 
of his secret worship — these are the high- 
places of his adoration ; and never did the 
devout Israelite look with more intentness 
towards Mount Zion, and with his face 
towards Jerusalem, than he does to his 
wealth, as to the mountain and strong hold 
of his security. Nor could the Supreme 
be more effectually deposed from the ho- 
mage of trust and gratitude than he ac- 
tually is, though this wealth were recalled 
from its various investments; and turned 
into one mass of gold; and cast into a 
piece of molten statuary; and enshrined 
on a pedestal, around which all his house- 
hold might assemble, and make it the ob- 
ject of their family devotions ; and plied 
every hour of every day with all the 
fooleries of a senseless and degrading Pa- 
ganism. It is thus, that God may keep up 
the charge of idolatry against us, even after 
all its images have been overthrown. It is 
thus that dissuasives -from idolatry are still 
addressed, in the New Testament, to the pu- 
pils of a new and better dispensation ; that 
little children are warned against idols ; and 
all of us are warned to flee from covetous- 
ness, which is idolatry. 

To look no further than to fortune as the 
dispenser of all the enjoyments which mo- 
ney can purchase, is to make that for- 
tune stand in the place of God. It is to 
make sense shut out faith, and to rob the 
King eternal and invisible of that supre- 
macy, to which all the blessings of human 
existence, and all the varieties of human 
condition, ought, in every instance, and in 
every particular, to be referred. But, as 
we have already remarked, the love of mo- 
ney is one affection, and the love of what is 
purchased by money is another. It was 
at first, we have no doubt, loved for the sake 
of the good things which it enabled its pos- 
sessor to acquire. But whether, as the re- 
sult of associations in the mind, so rapid as 
to escape the notice of our own conscious- 
ness—or as the fruit of an infection running 
by the sympathy among all men busily en- 
gaged in the prosecution of wealth, as the 
supreme good of their being— certain it is. 



VIII.] 



ON THE LOV: 



E OF MONEY. 



283 



that money, originally pursued for the sake 
of other things, comes at length to be prized 
for its own sake. And, perhaps, there is no 
one circumstance which serves more to liken 
the love of money to the most irrational of 
the heathen idolatries, than that it at length 
passes into the love of money for itself; and 
acquires a most enduring power over the 
human affections, separately altogether from 
the power of purchase and of command 
which belongs to it, over the proper and ori- 
ginal objects of human desire. The first 
thing which set man agoing in the pursuit 
of wealth, was that, through it, as an inter- 
vening medium, he found his way to other 
enjoyments; and it proves him, as we have 
observed, capable of a higher reach of an- 
ticipation than the beast of the field, or the 
fowls of the air, that he is thus able to cal- 
culate, and to foresee, and to build up a 
provision for the wants of futurity. But, 
mark how soon this boasted distinction of 
his faculties is overthrown, and how near 
to each other lie the dignity and the debase- 
ment of the human understanding. If it 
evinced a loftier mind in man than in the 
inferior animals, that he invented money, 
and by the acquisition of it can both secure 
abundance for himself, and transmit this 
abundance to the future generations of his 
family — what have we to offer, in vindica- 
tion of this intellectual eminence, when we 
witness how soon it is, that the pursuit of 
wealth ceases to be rational 1 How, instead 
of being prosecuted as an instrument, either 
for the purchase of ease, or the purchase of 
enjoyment, both the ease and enjoyment of 
a whole life are rendered up as sacrifices at 
its shrine? How, from being sought after 
as a minister of gratification to the appetites 
of nature, it at length brings nature into 
bondage, and robs hef of all her simple de- 
lights, and pours the infusion of wormwood 
into the currency of her feelings 1 — making 
that man sad who ought to be cheerful, and 
that man who ought to rejoice in his pre- 
sent abundance, filling him either with the 
cares of an ambition which never will be 
satisfied, or with the apprehensions of a dis- 
tress which, in all its pictured and exagge- 
rated evils, will never be realised. And it is 
wonderful, it is passing wonderful, that 
wealth, which derives all that is true and 
sterling in its worth from its subserviency 
to other advantages, should, apart from all 
thought about this subserviency, be made 
the object of such fervent and fatiguing 
devotion. Insomuch, that never did Indian 
devotee inflict upon himself a severer agony 
at the footstool of his Paganism, than those 
devotees of wealth w r ho, for its acquire- 
ment as their ultimate object, will forego 
all the uses for which alone it is valuable — 
will give up all that is genuine or tranquil in 
the pleasures of life ; and will pierce them- 
selves through with many sorrows ; and I 



will undergo all the fiercer tortures of the 
mind ; and, instead of employing what they 
have, to smooth their passage through the 
world, will, upon the hazardous sea of ad- 
venture, turn the whole of this passage into 
a storm — thus exalting wealth from a ser- 
vant unto a lord, who in return for the ho- 
mage that he obtains from his worshippers, 
exercises them, like Rehoboam his subjects 
of old, not with whips but with scorpions— 
with consuming anxiety, with never-sated 
desire, with brooding apprehension, and its 
frequent and ever-flitting spectres, and the 
endless jealousies of competition with men 
as intently devoted, and as emulous of a 
high place in the temple of their common 
idolatry, as themselves. And, without going 
to the higher exhibitions of this propensity, 
in all its rage and in all its restlessness, we 
have only to mark its workings on the walk 
of even and every-day citizenship; and 
there see, how, in the hearts even of its 
most commonplace votaries, wealth is fol- 
lowed after for its own sake ; how, unasso- 
ciated with all for which reason pronounces 
it to be of estimation, but, in virtue of some 
mysterious and undefinable charm, ope- 
rating not on any principle of the judgment, 
but on the utter perversity of judgment, mo- 
ney has come to be of higher account than 
all that is purchased by money, and has at- 
tained a rank co-ordinate with that which 
our Saviour assigns to the life and to the 
body of man, in being reckoned more than 
meat and more than raiment. Thus making 
that which is subordinate to be primary, 
and that which is primary subordinate; 
transferring, by a kind of fascination, the 
affections away from wealth in use, to 
wealth in idle and unemployed possession — 
insomuch, that the most welcome intelli- 
gence you could give to the proprietor of 
many a snug deposit, in some place of se- 
cure and progressive accumulation, would 
be, that he should never require any part 
either of it or of its accumulation back 
again for the purpose of expenditure — and 
that, to the end of his life, every new year 
should witness another unimpaired addition 
to the bulk or the aggrandizement of his 
idol. And it would just heighten his enjoy- 
ment could he be told, with prophetic cer- 
tainty, that this process of undisturbed aug- 
mentation would go on with his children's 
children, to the last age of the world ; that 
the economy of each succeeding race of 
descendants would leave the sum with its 
interest untouched, and the place of its sanc- 
tuary unviolated ; and, that through a series 
of indefinite generations, w r ould the magni- 
tude ever grow, and the lustre ever brighten, 
of that household god which he had erected 
for his own senseless adoration, and be- 
queathed as an object of as senseless adora- 
tion to his family. 

I We have the authority of that word which 



284 ON THE LOV 

has been pronounced a discerner of the 
thoughts and intents of the heart, that it 
cannot have two masters, or that there is 
not room in it for two great and ascendent 
affections. The engrossing power of one 
such affection is expressly affirmed of the 
love for Mammon, or the love for money 
thus named and characterised as an idol. 
Or, in other words, if the love of money be 
in the heart, the love of God is not there. 
If a man be trusting in uncertain riches, he 
is not trusting in the living God, who giveth 
us all things richly to enjoy. If his heart 
be set upon covetousness, it is set upon an 
object of idolatry. The true divinity is 
moved away from his place, and, worse than 
atheism, which would only leave it empty, 
has the love of wealth raised another di- 
vinity upon his throne. So that covetous- 
ness offers a more daring and positive ag- 
gression on the right and territory of the 
Godhead, than even infidelity. The latter 
would only desolate the sanctuary of hea- 
ven ; the former would set up an abomi- 
nation in the midst of it. It not only 
strips God of love and of confidence, which 
are his prerogatives, but it transfers them to 
another. And little does the man who is 
proud in honour, but, at the same time, 
proud and peering in ambition — little does 
he think, that, though acquitted in the eye 
of all his fellows, there still remains an 
atrocity of a deeper character than even 
that of atheism, with which he is chargeable. 
Let him just take an account of his mind, 
amid the labours of his merchandise, and 
he will find that the living God has no 
ascendency there; but that wealth, just as 
much as if per sonified into life, and agency, 
and power, wields Over him all the ascend- 
ency of God. Where his treasure is, his 
heart is also ; and, linking as he does his 
main hope with its increase, and his main 
fear with its fluctuations and its failures, 
he has effectually dethroned the Supreme 
from his heart, and deified an usurper 
in his room, as if fortune had been embo- 
died into a goddess, and he were in the 
habit of repairing, with a crowd of other 
worshippers, to her temple. She, in fact, 
is the dispenser of that which he chiefly 
prizes in existence. A smile from her is 
worth all the promises of the Eternal, and 
her threatening frown more dreadful to the 
imagination than all his terrors. 

And the disease is as near to universal 
as it is virulent. Wealth is the goddess 
whom all the world worshippeth. There is 
many a city in our empire, of which, with 
an eye of apostolical discernment, it may be 
seen that it is almost wholly given over to 
idolatry. If a man look no higher than to 
his money for his enjoyments, then money 
is his god. It is the god of his dependence, 
and the god upon whom his heart is staid. 
Or if, apart from other enjoyments, it by 



E OF MONEY. [l)ISC. 

some magical power of its own, has gotten 
the ascendency, then still it is followed after 
as the supreme good ; and there is an actual 
supplanting of the living God. He is rob- 
bed of the gratitude that we owe him for 
our daily sustenance; for, instead of receiv- 
ing it as if it came direct out of his hand, 
we receive it as if it came from the hand of 
a secondary agent, to whom we ascribe all 
the stability and independence of God. This 
wealth, in fact, obscures to us the character 
of God, as the real though unseen Author 
of our various blessings ; and as if by a mate- 
rial intervention does it hide from the per- 
ception of nature, the hand which feeds, 
and clothes, and maintains us in life, and 
in all the comforts and necessaries of life. 
It just has the effect of thickening still more 
that impalpable veil which lies between God 
and the eye of the senses. We lose all dis- 
cernment of him as the giver of our com- 
forts; and coming, as they appear to do, 
from that wealth which our fancies have 
raised into a living personification, does this 
idol stand before us, not as a deputy but as 
a substitute for that Being, with whom it is 
that we really have to do. All this goes 
both to widen and to fortify that disruption 
which has taken place between God and 
the world. It adds the power of one great 
master idol to the seducing influence of all 
the lesser idolatries. When the liking and 
the confidence of men are towards money, 
there is no direct intercourse, either by the 
one or the other of these affections to wards 
God ; and, in proportion as he sends forth 
his desires, and rests his security on the 
former, in that very proportion does he re- 
nounce God as his hope, and God as his 
dependence. 

And to advert, for one moment, to the 
misery of this affection, as well as to its 
sinfulness. He, over whom it reigns, feels 
a worthlessness in his present wealth, after 
it is gotten ; and when to this we add the 
restlessness of a yet unsated appetite, lord- 
ing it over all his convictions, and panting 
for more ; when, to the dullness of his ac- 
tual satisfaction in all the riches that he 
has, we add his still unquenched, and, in- 
deed, unquenchable desire for the riches 
that he has not ; when we reflect that as, in 
the pursuit of wealth, he widens the circle 
of his operations, so he lengthens out the 
line of his open and hazardous exposure, 
and multiplies, along the extent of it, those 
vulnerable points from which another and 
another dart of anxiety may enter into his 
heart ; when he feels himself as if floating 
on an ocean of contingency, on which, per- 
haps, he is only borne up by the breath of 
a credit that is fictitious, and which, liable 
to burst every moment, may leave him to 
sink under the weight of his overladen spe- 
culation; when suspended on the doubtful 
result of his bold and uncertain adventure, 



VIII.] 



ON THE LOVE OF MONEY. 



285 



he dreads the tidings of disaster in every 
arrival, and lives in a continual agony of 
feeling, kept up by the crowd and turmoil of 
his manifold distractions, and so overspread- 
ing the whole compass of his thoughts, as to 
leave not one narrow space for the thought 
of eternity ; — will any beholder just look to 
the mind of this unhappy man, thus tost 
and bewildered and thrown into a general 
unceasing frenzy, made out of many fears 
and many agitations, and not to say, that 
the bird of the air, which sends forth its un- 
reflecting song, and lives on the fortuitous 
bounty of Providence, is not higher in the 
scale of enjoyment than he? And how 
much more, then, the quiet Christian beside 
him, who, in possession of food and rai- 
ment has that godliness with contentment 
which is great gain — who, with the peace 
of heaven in his heart, and the glories of 
heaven in his eye, has found out the true 
philosophy of existence; has sought a por- 
tion where alone a portion can be found, 
and, in bidding away from his mind the 
love of money, has bidden away all the 
cross and all the carefulness along with it. 

Death will soon break up every swelling 
enterprise of ambition, and put upon it a 
most cruel and degrading mockery. And 
it is, indeed, an affecting sight, to behold the 
workings of this world's infatuation among 
so many of our fellow mortals nearing and 
nearing every day to eternity, and yet, in- 
stead of taking heed to that which is before 
them, mistaking their temporary vehicle for 
their abiding home — and spending all their 
time and all their thought upon its accom- 
modations. It is all the doing of our great 
adversary, thus to invest the trifles of a day 
in such characters of greatness and dura- 
bility ; and it is, indeed, one of the most 



formidable of his wiles. And whatever may 
be the instrument of reclaiming men from 
this delusion, it certainly is not any argu- 
ment either about the shortness of life, or 
the certainty and awfulness of its approach- 
ing termination. On this point man is ca- 
pable of a stout-hearted resistance, even to 
ocular demonstration ; nor do we know a 
more striking evidence of the bereavement 
which must have passed upon the human 
faculties, than to see how, in despite of 
arithmetic,— how, in despite of manifold 
experience, — how, in despite of all his ga- 
thering wrinkles, and all his growing infir- 
mities, — how, in despite of the ever-lessen- 
ing distance between him and his sepulchre, 
and of all the tokens of preparation for the 
onset of the last messenger, with w T hich, in 
the shape of weakness, and breathlessness, 
and dimness of eyes 5 he is visited ; will the 
feeble and asthmatic man still shake his 
silver locks in all the glee and transport of 
which he is capable, w T hen he hears of his 
gainful adventures, and his new accumula- 
tions. Nor can we tell how near he must 
get to his grave, or how far on he must ad- 
vance in the process of dying, ere gain 
cease to delight, and the idol of wealth 
cease to be dear to him. But when we see 
that the topic is trade and its profits, which 
lights up his faded eye with the glow^ of its 
chiefest ecstacy, we are as much satisfied 
that he leaves the world with all his trea- 
sure there, and all the desires of his heart 
there, as if acting what is told of the miser's 
death-bed, he made his bills and his parch- 
ments of security the companions of his 
bosom, and the last movements of his life 
were a fearful, tenacious, determined grasp, 
of what to him formed the all for which 
life was valuable. 



A SERMON, 

PREACHED IN ST. ANDREW'S CHURCH EDINBURGH, 

BEFORE 

THE SOCIETY 

FOR 

THE RELIEF OF THE DESTITUTE SICK, 

APRIL 18, 1813. 



"Blessed is he that considered! the poor; the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble."— Psalm xli. 1. 



There is an evident want of congeniality 
between the wisdom of this world, and the 
wisdom of the Christian. The term " wis- 
dom," carries my reverence along with it. 
It brings before me a grave and respectable 
character, whose rationality predominates 
over the inferior principles of his constitu- 
tion, and. to whom I willingly yield that 
peculiar homage which the enlightened, and 
the judicious, and the manly, are sure to 
exact from a surrounding neighbourhood. 
Now, so long as this wisdom has for its ob- 
ject some secular advantage, I yield it an 
unqualified reverence. It is a reverence 
which all understand, and all sympathize 
with. If, in private life, a man be wise in 
the management of his farm, or his fortune, 
or his family ; or if, in public life, he have 
wisdom to steer an empire through all its 
difficulties, and to carry it to aggrandize- 
ment and renown — the respect which I feel 
for such wisdom as this, is most cordial and 
entire, and supported by the universal ac- 
knowledgment of all whom I call to attend 
to it. 

Let me now suppose that this wisdom has 
changed its object — that the man whom I 
am representing to exemplify this respecta- 
ble attribute, instead of being wise for time, 
is wise for eternity — that he labours by the 
faith and sanctification of the gospel for un- 
perishable honours — that, instead of listen- 
ing to him with admiration at his sagacity, 
as he talks of business, or politics, or agri- 
culture, we are compelled to listen to him 
talking of the hope within the veil, and of 
Christ being the power of God, and the wis- 
dom of God, unto salvation. What becomes 
of your respect for him now? Are there not 
some of you who are quite sensible that this 



respect is greatly impaired, since the wis- 
dom of the man has taken so unaccountable 
a change in its object and in its direction? 
The truth is, that the greater part of the 
world feel no respect at all for a wisdom 
which they do not comprehend. They may 
love the innocence of a decidedly religious 
character, but they feel no sublime or com- 
manding sentiment of veneration for its wis- 
dom. All the truth of the Bible, and all the 
grandeur of eternity, will not redeem it from 
a certain degree of contempt. Terms which 
lower, undervalue, and degrade, suggest 
themselves to the mind ; and strongly dis- 
pose it to throw a mean and disagreeable 
colouring over the man who, sitting loose to 
the objects of the world, has become alto- 
gether a Christian. It is needless to ex- 
patiate; but what I have seen myself, and 
what must have fallen under the observa- 
tion of many whom I address, carry in them 
the testimony of experience to the assertion 
of the Apostle, " that the things of the Spirit 
of God are foolishness to the natural man, 
neither can he know them, for they are 
spiritually discerned." 

Now, what I have said of the respectable 
attribute of wisdom, is applicable, with al- 
most no variation, to another attribute of the 
human character, to which I would assign 
the gentler epithet of " lovely." The attri- 
bute to which I allude, is that of benevo- 
lence. This is the burden of every poet's 
song, and every eloquent and interesting 
enthusiast gives it his testimony. I speak 
not of the enthusiasm of methodists and de- 
votees—I speak of that enthusiasm of fine 
sentiment which embellishes the pages of 
elegant literature, and is addressed to all her 
sighing and amiable votaries, in the various 

286 



CHARITY 

forms of novel, and poetry, and dramatic 
entertainment. You would think if any 
thing could bring the Christian at one with 
the world around him, it would be this ; and 
that in the ardent benevolence which figures 
in novels, and sparkles in poetry, there 
would be an entire congeniality with the 
benevolence of the gospel. I venture to say, 
however, that there never existed a stronger 
repulsion between two contending senti- 
ments, than between the benevolence of the 
Christian, and the benevolence which is the 
theme of elegant literature — that the one, 
with all its accompaniments of tears, and 
sensibilities, and interesting cottages, is nei- 
ther felt nor understood by the Christian as 
such ; and the other, with its work and la- 
bours of love — its enduring" hardness as a 
good soldier of Jesus Chr ist, and its living 
not to itself, but to the will of Him who 
died for us, and who rose again, is not only 
not understood, but positively nauseated, by 
the poetical amateur. 

But the contrast does not stop here. The 
benevolence of the gospel is not only at an- 
tipodes with the visionary sons and daugh- 
ters of poetry, but it even varies in some of 
its most distinguishing features with the ex- 
perimental benevolence of real and familiar 
life. The fantastic benevolence of poetry is 
now indeed pretty well exploded ; and, in 
the more popular works of the age, there is 
a benevolence of a far truer and more sub- 
stantial kind substituted in its place — the 
benevolence which you meet with among 
men of business and observation— the be- 
nevolence which bustles and finds employ- 
ment among the most public and ordinary 
scenes, and which seeks for objects, not 
where the flower blows loveliest, and the 
stream, with its gentle murmurs, falls sweet- 
est on the ear, but finds them in his every- 
day walks — goes in quest of them through 
the heart of the great city, and is not afraid 
to meet them in its most putrid lanes and 
loathsome receptacles. 

Now, it must be acknowledged, that this 
benevolence is of a far more respectable 
kind than that poetic sensibility, which is 
of no use, because it admits of no applica- 
tion. Yet I am not afraid to say, that, re- 
spectable as it is, it does not come up to the 
benevolence of the Christian, and is at vari- 
ance, in some of its most capital ingredients, 
with the morality of the gospel. It is well, 
and very well, as far as it goes ; and that 
Christian is wanting to the will of his mas- 
ter who refuses to share and go along with 
it. The Christian will do all this, but he 
would like to do more ; and it is at the pre- 
cise point where he proposes to do more, 
that he finds himself abandoned by the co- 
operation and good wishes of those who 
had hitherto supported him. The Christian 
goes as far as the votary of this useful be- 
nevolence, but then he would like to go fur- 



SERMON. 287 

ther, and this is the point at which he is 
mortified to find that his old coadjutors re- 
fuse to go along with him ; and that instead 
of being strengthened by their assistance, 
he has their contempt and their ridicule; 
or, at all events, their total want of sympa- 
thy, to contend with. 

The truth is, that the benevolence I allude 
to, with all its respectable air of business 
and good sense, is altogether a secular be- 
nevolence. Through all the extent of its 
operations, it carries in it no reference to 
the eternal duration of its object. Time, and 
the accommodations of time, form all its 
subject and all its exercise, it labours, and 
often with success, to provide for its object 
a warm and well-sheltered tenement, but it 
looks not beyond the few little years when 
the earthly house of this tabernacle shall be 
dissolved — when the soul shall be driven 
from its perishable tenement, and the only 
benevolence it will acknowledge or care for, 
will be the benevolence of those who have 
directed it to a building not made with 
hands, eternal in the heavens. This, then, is 
the point at which the benevolence of the 
gospel separates from that worldly benevo- 
lence, to which, as far as it goes, I offer my 
cheerful and unmingled testimony. The 
one minds earthly things, the other has its 
conversation in heaven. Even when the 
immediate object of both is the same, you 
will generally perceive an evident distinc- 
tion in the principle. Individuals, for exam- 
ple, may co-operate, and will often meet in 
the same room, be members of the same so- 
ciety, and go hand in hand cordially toge- 
ther for the education of the poor. But the 
forming habits of virtuous industry, and 
good members of society, which are the 
sole consideration in the heart of the worldly 
philanthropist, are but mere accessions in 
the heart of the Christian. The main im- 
pulse of his benevolence lies in furnishing 
the poor with the means of enjoying that 
bread of life which came down from hea- 
ven, and in introducing them to the know- 
ledge of those scriptures which are the 
power of God unto salvation to every one 
who believeth. Now, it is so far a blessing 
to the world that there is a co-operation in 
the immediate object. But what I contend 
for, is, that there is a total want of conge- 
niality in the principle — that the moment 
you strip the institution of its temporal ad- 
vantages, and make it repose on the naked 
grandeur of eternity, it is fallen from, or 
laughed at as one of the chimeras of fanati- 
cism, and left to the despised efforts of those 
whom they esteem to be unaccountable peo- 
ple, who subscribe for missions, and squan- 
der their money on Bible societies. Strange 
effect, you would think, of eternity, to de- 
grade the object with which it is connected ! 
But so it is. The blaze of glory, which is 
I thrown around the martyrdom of a patriot 



283 



CHARITY SERMON. 



or a philosopher, is refused to the martyr- 
dom of a Christian. When a statesman dies, 
who lifted his intrepid voice for the liberty 
of the species, we hear of nothing but of the 
shrines and the monuments of immortality. 
Put into his place one of those sturdy re- 
formers, who, unmoved by councils and 
inquisitions, stood up for the religious liber- 
ties of the world ; and it is no sooner done, 
than the full tide of congenial sympathy and 
admiration is at once arrested. We have 
all heard of the benevolent apostleship of 
Howard, and what Christian will be behind 
his fellows with his applauding testimony ? 
But will they, on the other hand, share his 
enthusiasm when he tells them of the apos- 
tleship of Paul, who, in the sublimer sense 
of the term, accomplished the liberty of the 
captive, and brought them that sat in dark- 
ness out of the prison-house? Will they 
share in the holy benevolence of the apos- 
tle when he pours out his ardent effusions 
in behalf of his countrymen ? They were at 
that time on the eve of the cruelest suffer- 
ings. The whole vengeance of the Roman 
power was mustering to bear upon them. 
The siege and destruction of their city form 
one of the most dreadful tragedies in the 
history of war. Yet Paul seems to have had 
another object in his eye. It was their souls 
and their eternity which engrossed him. 
Can you sympathise with him in this prin- 
ciple, or join in kindred benevolence with 
him, when he says, that " my heart's desire 
and prayer for Israel is that they might be 
saved ?" 

But to bring my list of examples to a 
close, the most remarkable of them all may 
be collected from the history of the present 
attempts which are now making to carry 
the knowledge of divine revelation into the 
Pagan and uncivilized countries of the 
world. Now, it may be my ignorance, but 
I am certainly not aware of the fact, that 
without a book of religious faith — without 
religion, in fact, being the errand and occa- 
sion, we have never been able in modern 
imes so far to compel the attentions and to 
subdue the habits of savages, as to throw in 
among them the use and possession of a 
written language. Certain it is, however, 
at all events, that this very greatest step in 
the process of converting a wild man of the 
woods into a humanized member of society, 
has been accomplished by christian mis- 
sionaries. They have put into the hands 
of barbarians this mighty instrument of a 
written language, and they have taught 
them how to use it.* They have formed 



*As, for instance, Mr. John Elliot, and the 
Moravian brethren among the Indians of New 
England and Pennsylvania; the Moravians of 
South America ; Mr. Hans Egede, and the Mo- 
ravians in Greenland; the latter in Labradore, 



an orthography for wandering and untu- 
tored savages. They have given a shape 
and a name to their barbarous articulations; 
and the children of men, who lived on the 
prey of the wilderness, are now forming in 
village schools to the arts and the decencies 
of cultivated life. Now, I am not involving 
you in the controversy whether civilization 
should precede Christianity, or Christianity 
should precede civilization. It is not to 
what has been said on the subject, but to 
what has been done, that we are pointing 
your attention. We appeal to the fact ; and 
as an illustration of the principle we have 
been attempting to lay before you, we call 
upon you to mark the feelings, and the 
countenance, and the language, of the mere 
academic moralist, when you put into his 
hand the authentic and proper document 
where the fact is recorded — we mean a mis- 
sionary report, or a missionary magazine. 
We know that there are men who have so 
much of the firm nerve and hardihood of 
philosophy about them, as not to be repelled 
from the truth in whatever shape, or from 
whatever quarter it comes to them. But 
there are others of a humbler cast who have 
transferred their homage from the omnipo- 
tence of truth, to the omnipotence of a name ; 
who, because missionaries, while they are 
accomplishing the civilization, are labour- 
ing also for the eternity of savages, have 
lifted up the cry of fanaticism against 
them — who, because missionaries revere the 
word of God, and utter themselves in the 
language of the New Testament, nauseate 
every word that comes from them as over- 
run with the flavour and phraseology of 
methodism — who are determined, in short, 
to abominate all that is missionary, and suf- 
fer the very sound of the epithet to fill their 
minds with an overwhelming association 
of repugnance, and prejudice, and disgust. 

We would not have counted this so re- 
markable an example, had it not been that 
missionaries are accomplishing the very 
object on which the advocates for civiliza- 
tion love to expatiate. They are working 
for the temporal good far more effectually 
than any adventurer in the cause ever did 
before ; but mark the want of congeniality 
between the benevolence of this world, and 
the' benevolence of the Christian ; they incur 
contempt, because they are working for the 
spiritual and eternal good also. Nor do the 
earthly blessings which they scatter so 



among the Eskimaux ; the missionaries of Ota- 
heite, and other South Sea islands; and Mr. 
Brunton, under the patronage of the Society for 
Missions to Africa and the East, who reduced the 
language of the Susoos, a nation on the coast of 
Africa, to writing and grammatical form, and 
printed in it a spelling-book, vocabulary, catechism, 
and some tracts. Other instances besides might 
be given. 



CHARITY 

abundantly in their way, redeem from scorn 
the purer and the nobler principle which 
inspires them. 

These observations seem to be an appli- 
cable introduction to the subject before us. 
I call your attention to the way in which 
the Bible enjoins us to take up the care of 
the poor. It does not say, in the text before 
us, Commiserate the poor ; for, if it said no 
more than this, it would leave their neces- 
sities to be provided for by the random ebul- 
litions of an impetuous and unreflecting 
sympathy. It provides them with a better 
security than the mere feeling of compas- 
sion — a feeling which, however useful for 
the purpose of excitement, must be con- 
trolled and regulated. Feeling is but a faint 
and fluctuating security. Fancy may mis- 
lead it. The sober realities of life may dis- 
gust it. Disappointment may extinguish it. 
Ingratitude may embitter it. Deceit, with 
its counterfeit representations, may allure it 
to the wrong object. At all events, Time is 
the little circle within which it in general 
expatiates. It needs the impression of sen- 
sible objects to sustain it ; nor can it enter 
with zeal or with vivacity into the wants 
of the abstract and invisible soul. The 
Bible, then, instead of leaving the relief of 
the poor to the mere instinct of sympathy, 
makes it a subject for consideration — 
Blessed is he that considereth the poor — a 
grave and prosaic exercise I do allow, and 
which makes no figure in those high 
wrought descriptions, wmere the exquisite 
tale of benevolence is made up of all the 
sensibilities of tenderness on the one hand, 
and of all the ecstacies of gratitude on the 
other. The Bible rescues the cause from 
the mischief to which a heedless or un- 
thinking sensibility would expose it. It 
brings it under the cognizance of a higher 
faculty — a faculty of steadier operation than 
to be weary in well-doing, and of sturdier 
endurance than to give it up in disgust. 
It calls you to consider the poor. It 
makes the virtue of relieving them a matter 
of computation as well as of sentiment; 
and in so doing, it puts you beyond the 
reach of the various delusions by which 
you are at one time led to prefer the in- 
dulgence of pity to the substantial interest 
of its object; at another, are led to retire 
chagrined and disappointed from the scene 
of duty, because you have not met with the 
gratitude or the honesty that you laid your 
account with ; at another, are led to expend 
all your anxieties upon the accommodation 
of time, and to overlook eternity. It is the 
office of consideration to save you from 
all these fallacies. Under its tutorage, at- 
tention to the wants of the poor ripens 
into principle. I want, my brethren, to 
press its advantages upon you, for I can in 
no other way recommend the society whose 
clai ms I am appointed to lay before you, so 



sermon. 289 

effectually to your patronage. My time 
will only permit me to lay before you a few 
of their advantages, and I shall therefore 
confine myself to two leading particulars. 

I. The man who considers the poor, in- 
stead of slumbering over the emotions of a 
useless sensibility, among those imaginary 
beings whom poetry and romance have 
laid before him in all the elegance of fic- 
titious history, will bestow the labour and 
the attention of actual business among the 
poor of the real and the living w r orld. Be- 
nevolence is the burden of every romantic 
tale, and of every poet's song. It is dressed 
out in all the fairy enchantments of imagery 
and eloquence. All is beauty to the eye 
and music to the ear. Nothing seen but 
pictures of felicity, and nothing heard but 
the soft w x hispers of gratitude and affection. 
The reader is carried along by this soft and 
delightful representation of virtue. He ac- 
companies his hero through all the fancied 
varieties of his history. He goes along with 
him to the cottage of poverty and disease, 
surrounded, as we may suppose, with all 
the charms of rural obscurity, and where 
the murmurs of an adjoining rivulet accord 
with the finer and more benevolent sensi- 
bilities of the mind. He enters this en- 
chanting retirement, and meets with a pic- 
ture of distress, adorned in all the elegance 
of fiction. Perhaps a father laid on a bed 
of languishing, and supported by the la- 
bours of a pious and affectionate family, 
where kindness breathes in every word, and 
anxiety sits upon every countenance — where 
the industry of his children struggles in 
vain to supply the cordials which his po- 
verty denies him — where nature sinks every 
hour, and all feel a gloomy foreboding, 
which they strive to conceal, and tremble 
to express. The hero of romance enters, 
and the glance of his benevolent eye en- 
lightens this darkest recess of misery. He 
turns him to the bed of languishing, tells 
the sick man that there is still hope, and 
smiles comfort on his despairing children. 
Day after day he repeats his kindness and 
his charity. They hail his approach as the 
footsteps of an angel of mercy. The father 
lives to bless his deliverer. The family re- 
ward his benevolence by the homage of an 
affectionate gratitude; and, in the piety of 
their evening prayer, offer up thanks to the 
God of heaven, for opening the hearts of 
the rich to kindly and beneficent attentions. 
The reader weeps with delight. The visions 
of paradise play before his fancy. His tears 
flow, and his heart dissolves in all the lux- 
ury of tenderness. 

Now, we do not deny that the members 
of the Destitute Sick Society may at times 
have met with some such delightful scene 
to soothe and encourage them. But put 
the question to any of their visitors, and he 
will not fail to tell you, that if they had 



290 CHARITY 

never moved but when they had something 
like this to excite and to gratify their 
hearts, they would seldom have moved at 
all; and their usefulness to the poor would 
have been reduced to a very humble frac- 
tion of what they have actually done for 
them. What is this but to say, that it is 
the business of a religious instructor to give 
you, not the elegant, but the true represen- 
tation of benevolence — to represent it not 
so much as a luxurious indulgence to the 
finer sensibilities of the mind, but according 
to the sober declaration of Scripture, as a 
work and as a labour — as a business in 
which you must encounter vexation, op- 
position, and fatigue; where you are not 
always to meet with that elegance, which 
allures the fancy, or with that humble and 
retired adversity, which interests the more 
tender propensities of the heart ; but as a 
business where reluctance must often be 
overcome by a sense of duty, and where, 
though oppressed at every step, by envy, 
disgust, and disappointment, you are bound 
to persevere, in obedience to the law of 
God, and the sober instigation of principle. 

The benevolence of the gospel lies in ac- 
tions. The benevolence of our fictitious 
writers, in a kind of high- wrought delicacy 
of feeling and sentiment. The one dissi- 
pates all its fervour in sighs and tears, and 
idle aspirations — the other reserves its 
strength for efforts and execution. The 
one regards it as a luxurious enjoyment for 
the heart — the other, as a work and busi- 
ness for the hand. The one sits in indo- 
lence, and broods, in visionary rapture, 
over its schemes of ideal philanthropy — the 
other steps abroad, and enlightens by its 
presence, the dark and pestilential hovels 
of disease. The one wastes away in empty 
ejaculation — the other gives time and trou- 
ble to the work of beneficence — gives edu- 
cation to the orphan — provides clothes for 
the naked, and lays food on the table of 
the hungry. The one is indolent and ca- 
pricious, and often does mischief by the 
occasional overflowings of a whimsical and 
ill-directed charity — the other is vigilant 
and discerning, and takes care lest his dis- 
tributions be injudicious, and the effort of 
benevolence be misapplied. The one is 
soothed with the luxury of feeling, and re- 
clines in easy and indolent satisfaction — the 
other shakes off the deceitful languor of 
contemplation and solitude, and delights in 
a scene of activity. — Remember, that virtue, 
in general, is not to feel, but to do ; not 
merely to conceive a purpose, but to carry 
that purpose into execution ; not merely to 
be overpowered by the impression of a sen- 
timent, but to practise what it loves, and to 
imitate what it admires. 

To be benevolent in speculation, is often 
to be selfish in action and in reality. The 
vanity and the indolence of man delude 



SERMON. 

him into a thousand inconsistencies. He 
professes to love the name and the sem- 
blance of virtue, but the labour of exertion 
and of self-denial terrifies him from at- 
tempting it. The emotions of kindness are 
delightful to his bosom, but then they are 
little better than a selfish indulgence — they 
terminate in his own enjoyment — they are 
a mere refinement of luxury. His eye 
melt? over the picture of fictitious distress 
while not a tear is left for the actual starva- 
tion and misery with which he is sur- 
rounded. It is easy to indulge the imagina- 
tions of a visionary heart in going over a 
scene of fancied affliction, because here 
there is no sloth to overcome — no avari- 
cious propensity to control — no offensive or 
disgusting circumstance to allay the un- 
mingled impression of sympathy which a 
soft and elegant picture is calculated to 
awaken. It is not so easy to be benevolent 
in action and in reality, because here there 
is fatigue to undergo — there is time and 
money to give — there is the mortifying 
spectacle of vice, and folly, and ingratitude, 
to encounter. We like to give you the fair 
picture of love to man, because to throw 
over it false and fictitious embellishments, 
is injurious to its cause. These elevate the 
fancy by romantic visions which can never 
be realized. They embitter the heart by 
the most severe and mortifying disappoint- 
ments, and often force us to retire in dis- 
gust from what heaven has intended to be 
the theatre of our discipline and prepara- 
tion. Take the representation of the Bible. 
Benevolence is a work and a labour. It 
often calls for the severest efforts of vigi- 
lance and industry — a habit of action not to 
be acquired in the school of fine sentiment, 
but in the walks of business, in the dark 
and dismal receptacles of misery — in the 
hospitals of disease — in the putrid lanes of 
great cities, where poverty dwells in lank 
and ragged wretchedness, agonized with 
pain, faint with hunger, and shivtving in a 
frail and unsheltered tenement. 

You are not to conceive yourself a real 
lover of your species, and entitled to the 
praise or the reward of benevolence, be- 
cause you weep over a fictitious represen- 
tation of human misery. A man may weep 
in the indolence of a studious and contem- 
plative retirement ; he may breathe all the 
tender aspirations of humanity ; but what 
avails all this warm and diffusive benevo- 
lence, if it is never exerted — if it never rise 
to execution — if it never carry him to the 
accomplishment of a single benevolent 
purpose — if it shrink from activity, and 
sicken at the pain of fatigue ? It is easy, 
indeed, to come forward with the cant and 
hypocrisy of fine sentiment — to have a 
heart trained to the emotions of benevo- 
lence, while the hand refuses the labours 
of discharging its offices — to weep for 



CHARITY SERMON. 



291 



amusement, and to have nothing to spare 
for human suffering but the tribute of an 
indolent and unmeaning sympathy. Many 
of you must be acquainted with that cor- 
ruption of Christian doctrine, which has 
been termed Antinomianism. It professes 
the highest reverence for the Supreme 
Being, while it refuses obedience to the 
lessons of his authority. It professes the 
highest gratitude for the sufferings of 
Christ, while it refuses that course of life 
and action, which he demands of his fol- 
lowers. It professes to adore the tremen- 
dous Majesty of heaven, and to weep in 
shame and in sorrow over the sinfulness 
of degraded humanity, while every day it 
insults Heaven by the enormity of its mis- 
deeds, and evinces the insincerity of its 
wilful perseverance in the practice of ini- 
quity. This Antinomianism is generally 
condemned; and none reprobate it more 
than the votaries of fine sentiment — your 
men of taste and elegant literature — your 
epicures of feeling, who riot in all the lux- 
ury of theatrical emotion, and who, in their 
admiration of what is tender, and beautiful, 
and cultivated, have always turned with 
disgust from the doctrines of a sour and 
illiberal theology. We may say to such, 
as Nathan to David, " Thou art the man." 
Theirs is to all intents and purposes Anti- 
nomianism — and an Antinomianism of a 
far more dangerous and deceitful kind, than 
the Antinomianism of a spurious and pre- 
tended orthodoxy. In the Antinomianism of 
religion, there is nothing to fascinate or de- 
ceive you. It wears an air of repulsive 
bigotry, more fitted to awaken disgust than 
to gain the admiration of proselytes. There 
is a glaring deformity in its aspect, which 
alarms you at the very outset, and is an 
outrage to that natural morality which, dark 
and corrupted as it is, is still strong enough 
to lift its loud remonstrance against it. But 
in the Antinomianism of high wrought sen- 
timent, there is a deception far more insinu- 
ating. It steals upon you under the sem- 
blance of virtue. It is supported by the 
delusive colouring of imagination and 
poetry. It has all the graces and embel- 
lishments of literature to recommend it. 
Vanity is soothed, and conscience lulls itself 
to repose in this dream of feeling and of 
indolence. 

Let us dismiss these lying vanities, and 
regulate our lives by the truth and sober- 
ness of the New Testament. Benevolence 
is not in word and in tongue, but in deed 
and in truth. It is a business with men as 
they are, and with human life as drawn by 
the rough hand of experience. It is a duty 
which you must perform at the call of prin- 
ciple, though there be no voice of eloquence 
to give splendour to your exertions, and no 
music or poetry to lead your willing foot- 
steps through the bowers of enchantment. 



It is not the impulse of high and ecstatic 
emotion. It is an exertion of principle. You 
must go to the poor man's cottage, though 
no verdure flourish around it, and no rivulet 
be nigh to delight you by the gentleness of 
its murmurs. If you look for the romantic 
simplicity of fiction you will be disappoint- 
ed : but it is your duty to persevere, in spite 
of every discouragement. Benevolence is 
not merely a feeling, but a principle ; not a 
dream of rapture for the fancy to indulge 
in, but a business for the hand to execute. 

It must now be obvious to all of you, that 
it is not enough that you give moneyj and 
add your name to the contributors of cha- 
rity — you must give it with judgment. You 
must give your time and your attention. 
You must descend to the trouble of examina- 
tion. You must rise from the repose of con- 
templation, and make yourself acquainted 
with the objects of your benevolent exer- 
cises. Will he husband your charity with 
care, or will he squander it away in idle- 
ness and dissipation ? Will he satisfy him- 
self with the brutal luxury of the moment, 
and neglect the supply of his more substan- 
tial necessities, or suffer his children to be 
trained in ignorance and depravity ? Will 
charity corrupt him by laziness ? What is 
his peculiar necessity ? Is it the want of 
health Or the want of employment ? Is it 
the pressure of a numerous family? Does 
he need medicine to administer to the dis- 
eases of his children % Does he need fuel or 
raiment to protect them from the incle- 
mency of winter ? Does he need money 
to satisfy the yearly demands of his land- 
lord, or to purchase books, and to pay for 
the education of his offspring ? 

To give money is not to do all the work 
and labour of benevolence. You must go 
to the poor man's bed. You must lend your 
hand to the work of assistance. You must 
examine his accounts. You must try to re- 
cover those debts which are due to his fa- 
mily. You must try to recover those wages 
which are detained by the injustice or the 
rapacity of his master. You must employ 
your mediation with his superiors. You 
must represent to them the necessities of 
his situation. You must solicit their assist- 
ance, and awaken their feelings to the tale 
of his calamity. This is benevolence in its 
plain, and sober, and substantial reality, 
though eloquence may have withheld its 
imagery, and poetry may have denied its 
graces and its embellishments. This is true 
and unsophisticated goodness. It may be 
recorded in no earthly documents ; but if 
done under the influence of christian prin- 
ciple — in a word, done unto Jesus, it is writ- 
ten in the book of heaven, and will give 
a new lustre to that crown to which his 
disciples look forward in time, and will wear 
through eternity. 

Y'ou have all heard of the division of la- 



292 



HARITY SERMON. 



bour, and I wish you to understand, that the 
advantage of this principle may be felt as 
much in the operations of charity, as in the 
operations of trade and manufactures. The 
work of beneficence does not lie in the one 
act of giving money ; there must be the act 
of attendance ; there must be the act of in- 
quiry; there must be the act of judicious 
application. But I can conceive that an 
individual may be so deficient in the 
varied experience and attention which a 
work so extensive demands, that he may 
retire in disgust and discouragement from 
the practice of charity altogether. The in- 
stitution of a Society, such as this, saves 
this individual to the cause. It takes upon 
itself all the subsequent acts in the work 
and labour of love, and restricts his part to 
the mere act of giving money. It fills the 
middle space between the dispensers and 
the recipients of charity. The habits of 
many who now hear me, may disqualify 
them for the work of examination. They 
may have no time for it ; they may live at 
a distance from the objects ; they may nei- 
ther know how to introduce, nor how to 
conduct themselves in the management of 
all the details ; their want of practice and 
of experience may disable them for the 
work of repelling imposition ; they should 
try to gain the necessary habits ; it is right 
that every individual among us, should 
each, in his own sphere, consider the poor, 
and qualify themselves for a judicious and 
discriminating charity. But, in the mean 
time, the Society for the Relief of the Des- 
titute Sick, is an instrument ready made 
to our hands. Avail yourselves of this in- 
strument immediately, as, by the easiest 
part of the exercise of charity, which is to 
give money, you carry home to the poor 
all the benefits of its most difficult exercises. 
The experience which you want, the mem- 
bers of this laudable Society are in posses- 
sion of. By the work and observation of 
years, a stock of practical wisdom is now 
accumulated among them. They have been 
long inured to all that is loathsome and dis- 
couraging in this good work, and they have 
nerve, and hardihood, and principle to front 
it. They are every way qualified to be the 
carriers of your bounty, for it is a path they 
have long travelled in. Give the money, 
and these conscientious men will soon bring 
it into contact with the right objects. They 
know the way through all the obscurities 
of this metropolis, and they they can bring 
the offerings of your charity to people whom 
you will never see, and into houses which 
you will never enter. It is not easy to con- 
ceive, far less to compute the extent of hu- 
man misery ; but these men can give you 
experience for it. They can show you their 
registers of the sick and of the dying ; they 
are familiar with disease in all its varieties 
of faintness, and breathlessness, and pain. — 



Sad union ! they are called to witness it in 
conjunction with poverty ; and well do they 
know that there is an eloquence in the im- 
ploring looks of these helpless poor, which 
no description can set before you. Oh ! my 
brethren, figure to yourselves the calamity 
in all its soreness, and measure your bounty 
by the actual greatness of the claims, and 
not by the feebleness of their advocate. 

I have trespassed upon your patience; 
but, at the hazard of carrying my address 
to a length that is unusual, I must still say 
more. Nor would I ever forgive myself if 
I neglected to set the eternity of the poor 
in all its importance before you. This is 
the second point of consideration to which 
I wish to direct you. The man who con- 
siders the poor will give his chief anxiety 
to the wants of their eternity. It must be 
evident to all of you that this anxiety is 
little felt. I do not appeal for the evidence 
of this to the selfish part of mankind — there 
we are not to expect it. I go to those who 
are really benevolent — who have a wish to 
make others happy, and who take trouble 
in so doing ; and it is a striking observation, 
how little the salvation of these others is 
the object of that benevolence which makes 
them so amiable. It will be found that in 
and by far the greater number of instances, 
this principle is all consumed on the ac- 
commodations of time, and the necessities 
of the body. It is the meat which feeds 
them — the garment which covers them — 
the house which shelters them — the money 
which purchases all things; these, I say, 
are what form the chief topics of benevo- 
lent anxieties. Now, we do not mean to dis- 
courage this principle. We cannot afford 
it ; there is too little of it ; and it forms too 
refreshing an exception to that general sel- 
fishness which runs throughout the haunts 
of business and ambition, for us to say any 
thing against it. We are not cold-blooded 
enough to refuse our delighted concurrence 
to an exertion so amiable in its principle, 
and so pleasing in the warm and comfort- 
able spectacle which it lays before us. The 
poor, it is true, ought never to forget, that 
it is to their own industry, and to the wis- 
dom and economy of their own manage- 
ment, that they are to look for the elements 
of subsistence — that if idleness and prodi- 
gality shall lay hold of the mass of our 
population, no benevolence, however un- 
bounded, can ever repair a mischief so irre- 
coverable—that if they will not labour for 
themselves, it is not in the power of the 
rich to create a sufficiency for them ; and 
that though every heart were opened, and 
every purse emptied in the cause, it would 
absolutely go for nothing towards forming 
a well-fed, a well-lodged, or a well condi- 
tioned peasantry. Still, however, there are 
cases which no foresight could prevent, and 
no industry could provide for— where the 



CHARITY 

blow falls heavy and unexpected on some 
devoted son or daughter of misfortune, and 
where, though thoughtlessness and folly 
may have had their share, benevolence, not 
very nice in its calculations, will feel the 
overpowering claim of actual, helpless, and 
imploring misery. Now, I again offer my 
cheerful testimony to such benevoience as 
this 5 I count it delightful to see it singling 
out its object; and sustaining it against the 
cruel pressure of age and of indigence ; and 
when I enter a cottage where I see a warmer 
fire-side, or more substantial provision, than 
the visible means can account for, I say that 
the landscape, in all its summer glories, 
does not offer an object so gratifying, as 
when referred to the vicinity of the great 
man's house, and the people who live in it, 
and am told that I will find my explanation 
there. Kind and amiable people ! your 
benevolence is most lovely in its display, 
but oh ! it is perishable in its consequences. 
Does it never occur to you that in a few 
years this favourite will die — and that he 
will go to the place where neither cold nor 
hunger will reach him, but that a mighty 
interest remains, of which both of us may 
know the certainty, though neither you nor 
I can calculate the extent. Your benevo- 
lence is too short. — It does not shoot far 
enough a-head. — It is like regaling a child 
with a sweetmeat or a toy, and then aban- 
doning the happy, unreflecting infant to 
exposure. You make the poor old man 
happy with your crumbs and your frag- 
ments, but he is an infant on the mighty 
range of infinite duration ; and will you 
leave the soul, which has the infinity to go 
through, to its chance? How comes it that 
the grave should throw so impenetrable a 
shroud over the realities of eternity ? How 
comes it that heaven, and hell, and judg- 
ment, should be treated as so many nonen- 
tities, and that there should be as little real 
and operative sympathy felt for the soul 
which lives forever, as for the body after it 
is dead, or for the dust into which it mould- 
ers? Eternity is longer than time; the 
arithmetic, my brethren, is all one side upon 
this question; and the wisdom which calcu- 
lates, and guides itself by calculation, gives 
its weighty and respectable support to what 
may be called the benevolence of faith. 

Now, if there be one employment more 
fitted than another to awaken this benevo- 
lence, it is the peculiar employment of that 
Society for which I am now pleading. I 
would have anticipated such benevolence 
from the situation they occupy, and the in- 
formation before the public bears testimony 
to the fact. The truth is, that the diseases 
of he body may be looked upon as so many 
outlets through which the soul finds its way 
to eternity. Now, it is at these outlets that 
the members of this Society have stationed 
themselves. This is the interesting point of 



sermon. 293 

survey at which they stand, and from which 
they command a look of both worlds. They 
have placed themselves in the avenues 
which lead from time to eternity, and they 
have often to witness the awful transition 
of a soul hovering at the entrance — strug- 
gling its way through the valley of the 
shadow of death, and at last breaking loose 
from the confines of all that is visible. Do 
you think it likely that men with such spec- 
tacles before them, will withstand the sense 
of eternity? No, my brethren, they cannot, 
they have not. Eternity, I rejoice to an- 
nounce to yon. is not forgotten by them ; 
and with their care for the diseases of the 
body, they are neither blind nor indifferent 
to the fact, that the soul is diseased also. 
We know it well. There is an indolent and 
superficial theology, which turns its eyes 
from the danger, and feels no pressing call 
for the application of the remedy — which 
reposes more in its own vague and self- 
assumed conceptions of the mercy of God, 
than in the firm and consistent representa- 
tions of the New Testament — which over- 
looks the existence of disease altogether, 
and therefore feels no alarm, and exerts no 
urgency in the business — which, in the face 
of all the truths and all the severities that 
are uttered in the word of God, leaves the 
soul to its chance; or, in other words, by 
neglecting to administer every thing spe- 
cific for the salvation of the soul, leaves it 
to perish. 

We do not want to involve you in con- 
troversies ; we only ask you to open the 
New Testament, and attend to the obvious 
meaning of a word which occurs frequently 
in its pages — we mean the word saved. 
The term surely implies, that the present 
state of the thing to be saved is a lost and 
an undone state. If a tree be in a health- 
ful state from its infancy, you never apply 
the term saved to it, though you see its 
beautiful foliage, its flourishing' blossoms, 
its abundant produce, and its progressive 
ascent through all the varieties incidental 
to a sound and a prosperous tree. But if 
it were diseased in its infancy, and ready 
to perish, and if it were restored by man- 
agement and artificial applications, then 
you would say of this tree that it was sa ved-, 
and the very term implies some previous 
state of uselessness and corruption. What, 
then, are we to make of the frequent occur- 
rence of this term in the New Testament, 
as applied to a human being ? If men come 
into this world pure and innocent, and have 
nothing more to do but to put forth the 
powers with which nature has endowed 
them, and so rise through the progressive 
stages of virtue and excellence, to the re- 
wards of immortality, you would not say 
of these men that they were saved, when 
they were translated to these rewards. 
These rewards of man are the natural 



294 CHARITY 

effects of his obedience, and the term saved 
is not at all applicable to such a supposi- 
tion. But the God of the Bible says differ- 
ently. If a man obtain heaven at all, it is 
by being saved. He is in a diseased state, 
and it is by the healing application of the 
blood of the Son of God, that he is restored 
from that state. The very title applied to 
him proves the same thing. He is called 
our Saviour. The deliverance which he 
effects is called our salvation. The men 
whom he doth deliver are called the saved. 
Doth not this imply some previous state of 
disease and helplessness? And from the 
frequent and incidental occurrence of this 
term, may we not gather an additional tes- 
timony to the truth of what is elsewhere 
more expressly revealed to us, that we are 
lost by nature, and that to obtain recovery, 
we must be found in Him who came to 
seek and to save that which was lost. He 
that believeth on the Son of God shall be 
saved, but he that believeth not, the wrath 
of God abideth on him. 

We know that there are some who loathe 
this representation ; but this is just another 
example of the substantial interests of the 
poor being sacrificed to mismanagement 
and delusion. It is to be hoped that there 
are many who have looked the disease fairly 
in the face, and are ready to reach forward 
the remedy adapted to relieve it. We should 
have no call to attend to the spiritual in- 
terests of men, if they could safely be left 
to themselves, and to the spontaneous ope- 
ration of those powers with which it is sup- 
posed that nature has endowed them. But 
this is not the state of the case. We come 
into the world with the principles of sin and 
condemnation within us ; and, in the con- 
genial atmosphere of this world's example, 
these ripen fast for the execution of the 
sentence. During the period of this short 
but interesting passage to another world, 
the remedy is in the gospel held out to all, 
and the freedom and universality of its in- 
vitations, while it opens assured admission 
to all who will, must aggravate the weight 
and severity of the sentence to those who 
will not ; and upon them the dreadful en- 
ergy of that saying will be accomplished, — 
" How shall they escape if they neglect so 
great a salvation ?" 

We know part of your labours for the 
eternity of the poor. We know that you 
have brought the Bible into contact with 
many a soul. And we are sure that this is 
suiting the remedy to the disease ; for the 
Bible contains those words which are the 



SERMON. 

power of God through faith unto salvation, 
to every one who believes them. 

To this established instrument for work- 
ing faith in the heart, add the instrument 
of hearing. When you give the Bible, ac- 
company the gift with the living energy 
of a human voice — let prayer, and advice, 
and explanation, be brought to act upon 
them; and let the warm and deeply felt 
earnestness of your hearts, discharge itself 
upon theirs in the impressive tones of sin- 
cerity, and friendship, and good will. This 
is going substantially to work. It is, if I 
may use the expression, bringing the right 
element to bear upon the case before you ; 
and be assured, every treatment of a con- 
vinced and guilty mind is superficial and 
ruinous, which does not lead it to the Sa- 
viour, and bring before it his sacrifice and 
atonement, and the influences of that spirit 
bestowed through his obedience on all who 
believe on Him. 

W T hile in the full vigour of health we may 
count it enough to take up with something 
short of this. But — striking testimony to 
evangelical truth ! go to the awful reality 
of a human soul on the eve of its departure 
from the body, and you will find that all 
those vapid sentimentalities which partake 
not of the substantial doctrine of the New 
Testament, are good for nothing. Hold up 
your face, my brethren, for the truth and 
simplicity of the Bible. Be not ashamed 
of its phraseology. It is the right instru- 
ment to handle in the great work of calling 
a human soul out of darkness into marvel- 
lous light. Stand firm and secure on the 
impregnable principle, that this is the word 
of God, and that all taste, and imagination, 
and science, must give way before its over- 
bearing authority. Walk in the footsteps 
of your Saviour, in the twofold office of 
caring for the diseases of the body, and ad- 
ministering to the wants of the soul j and 
though you may fail in the former — though 
the patient may never arise and walk, yet, 
by the blessing of Heaven upon your fer- 
vent and effectual endeavours, the latter ob- 
ject may be gained — the soul may be light- 
ened of all its anxieties, the whole burden of 
its diseases may be swept away — it may be 
of good cheer, because its sins are forgiven 
— and the right direction may be impressed 
upon it, which will carry it forward in pro- 
gress to a happy eternity. Death may not 
be averted, but death may be disarmed. It 
may be stript of its terrors, and instead of 
a devouring enemy, it may be hailed as a 
messenger of triumph. 



THOUGHTS OX UNIVERSAL PEACE. 



A SERMON, 

DELIVERED ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 18, 1816, THE DAY OF NATIONAL 
THANKSGIVING FOR THE RESTORATION OF PEACE. 



" Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they leara war any more." — Isaiah, ii. 4. 



There are a great many passages in 
Scripture which warrant the expectation 
that a time is coming, when an end shall be 
put to war — when its abominations and its 
cruelties shall be banished from the face of 
the earth — when those restless elements of 
ambition and jealousy which have so long 
kept the species in a state of unceasing 
commotion, and are ever and anon sending 
another and another wave over the field of 
this world's politics, shall at length be 
hushed into a placid and ever-during calm ; 
and many and delightful are the images 
which the Bible employs, as guided by the 
light of prophecy, it carries us forward to 
those millennial days, when the reign of 
peace shall be established, and the wide 
charity of the gospel, which is confined by 
no limits, and owns no distinctions, shall 
embosom the whole human race within the 
ample grasp of one harmonious and uni- 
versal family. 

But before I proceed, let me attempt to 
do away a delusion which exists on the 
subject of prophecy. Its fulfilments are all 
certain, say many, and we have therefore 
nothing to do, but to wait for them in pas- 
sive and indolent expectation. The truth 
of God stands in no dependence on human 
aid to vindicate the immutability of all his 
announcements; and the power of God 
stands in no need of the feeble exertions of 
man to hasten the accomplishment of any 
of his purposes. Let us therefore sit down 
quietly in the attitude of spectators — let us 
leave the Divinity to do his own work in 
his own way, and mark, by the progress of 
a history over which we have no control, 
the evolution of his designs, and the march 
of his wise and beneficent administration. 

Now, it is very true, that the Divinity 
will do his own work in his own wa}', but 
if he choose to tell us that that way is not 
without the instrumentality of men, but by 
their instrumentality, might not this sitting 
down into the mere attitude of spectators, 
turn out to be a most perverse and disobe- 
dient conclusion ? It is true, that his pur- 
pose will obtain its fulfilment, whether we 



shall offer or not to help it forward by our 
co-operation. But if the object is to be 
brought about, and if, in virtue of the same 
sovereignty by which he determined upon 
the object, he has also determined on the 
way which leads to it, and that that way 
shall be by the acting of human principle, 
and the putting forth of human exertion, 
then, let us keep back our co-operation as 
we may, God will raise up the hearts of 
others to that which we abstain from; and 
they, admitted into the high honour of be- 
ing fellow-workers with God, may do ho- 
mage to the truth of his prophecy, while 
we, perhaps, may unconsciously do dread- 
ful homage to the truth of another warning, 
and another prophecy : " I work a work in 
your days which you shall not believe, 
though a man declare it unto you. Behold, 
ye despisers, and wonder and perish." 

Now this is the very way in which pro- 
phecies have been actually fulfilled. The 
return of the people of Israel to their own 
land, was an event predicted by inspiration, 
and was brought about by the stirring up 
of the spirit of Cyrus, who felt himself 
charged with the duty of building a house 
to God at Jerusalem. The pouring out of 
the Spirit on the day of Pentecost was fore- 
told by the Saviour ere he left the world, 
and was accomplished upon men who as- 
sembled themselves together at the place 
to which they were commanded to repair ; 
and there they waited, and they prayed. 
The rapid propagation of Christianity in 
those days was known by the human agents 
of this propagation, to be made sure by the 
word of prophecy ; but the way in which 
it was actually made sure, was by the 
strenuous exertions, the unexampled hero- 
ism, the holy devotedness and zeal of mar- 
tyrs, and apostles, and evangelists. And 
even now, my brethren, while no profess- 
ing Christian can deny that their faith is to 
be one day the faith of all countries ; but 
while many of them idly sit and wait the 
time of God putting forth some mysterious 
and unheard of agency, to bring about the 
universal diffusion, there are men who have 
295 



290 



THOUGHTS ON PEACE. 



betaken themselves to the obvious expedient 
of going abroad among the nations, and 
teaching them ; and though derided by an 
undeserving world, they seem to be the 
very men pointed out by the Bible, who 
are going to and fro increasing the know- 
ledge of its doctrines, and who will be the 
honoured instruments of carrying into ef- 
fect the most splendid of all its anticipa- 
tions. 

Now, the same holds true, I apprehend, 
of the prophecy in my text. The abolition 
of war will be the effect not of any sudden 
or resistless visitation from heaven on the 
character of men — not of any mystical in- 
fluence working with all the omnipotence 
of a charm on the passive hearts of those 
who are the subjects of it — not of any blind 
or overruling fatality which will come upon 
the earth at some distant period of its his- 
tory, and about which, we, of the present 
day, have nothing to do but to look silently 
on, without concern, and without co-ope- 
ration. The prophecy of a peace as uni- 
versal as the spread of the human race, and 
as enduring as the moon in the firmament, 
will meet its accomplishment, ay, and at 
that very time which is already fixed by 
Him who seeth the end of all things from 
the beginning thereof. But it will be brought 
about by the activity of men. It will be 
done by the philanthropy of thinking and 
intelligent Christians. The conversion of 
the Jews — the spread of the gospel light 
among the regions of idolatry — these are 
distinct subjects of prophecy, on which the 
faithful of the land are now acting, and to 
the fulfilment of which they are giving their 
zeal and their energy. I conceive the pro- 
phecy which relates to the final abolition of 
war will be taken up in the same manner, 
and the subject will be brought to the test 
of christian principle, and many will unite 
to spread a growing sense of its follies and 
its enormities, over the countries of the 
world — and the public will be enlightened, 
not by the factious and turbulent declama- 
tions of a party, but by the mild dissemina- 
tion of gospel sentiment through the land — 
and the prophecy contained in this book 
will pass into effect and accomplishment, 
by no other influence than the influence of 
its ordinary lessons on the hearts and con- 
sciences of individuals — and the measure 
will first be carried in one country, not by 
the unhallowed violence of discontent, but 
by the control of general opinion, expressed 
on the part of a people, who, if Christian 
in their repugnance to war, will be equally 
Christian in all the loyalties, and subjections, 
and meek unresisting virtues of the New 
Testament — and the sacred fire of good-will 
to the children of men will spread itself 
through all climes, and through all lati- 
tudes — and thus by scriptural truth con- 
veyed with power from one people to an- 



other, and taking its ample round among 
all the tribes and families of the earth, shall 
we arrive at the magnificent result of peace 
throughout all its provinces, and security in 
all its dwelling-places. 

In the further prosecution of this dis- 
course, I shall, first, expatiate a little on the 
evils of war. 

In the second place, I shall direct your 
attention to the obstacles which stand in 
the way of its extinction, and which threaten 
to retard for a time the accomplishment of 
the prophecy I have now selected for your 
consideration. 

And, in the third place, I shall endeavour 
to point out, what can only be done at 
present in a hurried and superficial man- 
ner, some of the expedients by which these 
obstacles may be done away. 

I. I shall expatiate a little on the evils of 
war. The mere existence of the prophecy 
in my text, is a sentence of condemnation 
upon war, and stamps a criminality on its 
very forehead. So soon as Christianity 
shall gain a full ascendency in the world, 
from that moment war is to disappear. We 
have heard that there is something noble in 
the art of war; that there is something 
generous in the ardour of that fine chivalric 
spirit which kindles in the hour of alarm, 
and rushes with delight among the thickest 
scenes of danger and of enterprise ;— that man 
is never more proudly arrayed, than when, 
elevated by a contempt for death, he puts 
on his intrepid front, and looks serene, 
while the arrows of destruction are flying 
on every side of him : — that expunge war, 
and you expunge some of the brightest 
names in the catalogue of human virtue, 
and demolish that theatre on which have 
been displayed some of the sublimest ener- 
gies of the human character. It is thus that 
war has been invested with a most perni- 
cious splendour, and men have offered to 
justify it as a blessing and an ornament to 
society, and attempts have been made to 
throw a kind of imposing morality around 
it ; and one might almost be reconciled to 
the whole train of its calamities and its hor- 
rors, did he not believe his Bible, and learn 
from its information, that in the days of 
perfect righteousness, there will be no 
war ; — that so soon as the character of man 
has had the last finish of Christian principle 
thrown over it, from that moment all the 
instruments of war will be thrown aside, 
and all its lessons will be forgotten : that 
therefore what are called the virtues of war, 
are no virtues at all, or that a better and a 
worthier scene will be provided for their 
exercise; but in short, that at the com- 
mencement of that blissful era, when the 
reign of heaven shall be established, war 
will take its departure from the world with 
all the other plagues and atrocities of the 
species. 



THOUGHTS ON PEACE. 



297 



But apart altogether from this testimony 
to the evil of war, let us just take a direct 
look of it, and see whether we can find its 
character engraved on the aspect it bears 
to the eye of an attentive observer. The 
stoutest heart of this assembly would recoil, 
were he who owns it, to behold the de- 
struction of a single individual by some 
deed of violence. Were the man who at 
this moment stands before you in the full 
play and energy of health, to be in another 
moment laid by some deadly aim a lifeless 
corpse at your feet, there is not one of } r ou 
who would not prove how strong are the 
relentings of nature at a spectacle so hide- 
ous as death. There are some of you who 
would be haunted for whole days by the 
image of horror you had witnessed — who 
would feel the weight of a most oppressive 
sensation upon your heart, which nothing 
but time could wear away — who would be 
so pursued by it as to be unfit for business 
or for enjoyment — who would think of it 
through the day, and it would spread a 
gloomy disquietude over your waking mo- 
ments — who would dream of it at night, 
and it would turn that bed which you 
courted as a retreat from the torments of 
an ever-meddling memory, into a scene of 
restlessness. 

But generally the death of violence is not 
instantaneous, and there is often a sad and 
dreary interval between its final consumma- 
tion, and the infliction of the blow which 
causes it. The winged messenger of de- 
struction has not found its direct avenue to 
that spot, where the principle of life is situ- 
ated — and the soul, finding obstacles to its 
immediate egress, has to struggle it for 
hours, ere it can make its weary way 
through the winding avenues of that te- 
nement, which has been torn open by a 
brother's hand. O! my brother, if there 
be something appalling in the suddenness 
of death, think not that when gradual in its 
advances, you will alleviate the horrors of 
this sickening contemplation, by viewing it 
in a milder form. O ! tell me, if there be 
any relentings of pity in your bosom, how 
could you endure it, to behold the agonies 
of the dying man — as goaded by pain, 
he grasps the cold ground in convulsive 
energy, or faint with the loss of blood, his 
pulse ebbs low, and the gathering pale- 
ness spreads itself over his countenance ; or 
wrapping himself round in despair, he can 
only mark by a few feeble quiverings, that 
life still lurks and lingers in his lacerated 
body ; or lifting up a faded eye, he casts 
on you a look of imploring helplessness, 
for that succour which no sympathy can 
yield him. It may be painful to dwell on 
such a representation ; but this is the way 
in which the cause of humanity is served. 
The eye of the sentimentalist turns away 
from its sufferings, and he passes by on the 
2 P 



other side, lest he hear that pleading voice^ 
which is armed with a tone of remon- 
strance so vigorous as to disturb him. He 
cannot bear thus to pause, in imagination, 
on the distressing picture of one individual, 
but multiply it ten thousand times ; say, 
how much of all this distress has been 
heaped together upon a single field ; give 
us the arithmetic of this accumulated 
wretchedness, and lay it before us with all 
the accuracy of an official computation— 
and strange to tell, not one sigh is lifted up 
among the crowd of eager listeners, as they 
stand on tiptoe, and catch every syllable of 
utterance, which is read to them out of the 
registers of death. O ! say, what mystic 
spell is that, which so blinds us to the suffer- 
ings of our brethren ; which deafens to our 
ear the voice of bleeding humanity, when it 
is aggravated by the shriek of dying thou- 
sands; which makes the very magnitude 
of the slaughter, throw a softening disguise 
over its cruelties, and its horrors ; which 
causes us to eye with indifference, the field 
that is crowded with the most revolting 
abominations, and arrests that sigh, which 
each individual would singly have drawn 
from us, by the report of the many who 
have fallen, and breathed their last in agony 
along with them. 

I am not saying that the burden of all 
this criminality rests upon the head of the 
immediate combatants. It lies somew T here; 
but who can deny that a soldier may be a 
Christian, and that from the bloody field 
on which his body is laid, his soul may 
wing its ascending way to the shores of a 
peaceful eternity ? But when I think that 
the Christians, even of the great world, form 
but a very little flock, and that an army is 
not a propitious soil for the growth of chris- 
tian principle — when I think on the cha- 
racter of one such army, that had been led 
on for years by a ruffian ambition, and 
been inured to scenes of barbarity, and had 
gathered a most ferocious hardihood of 
soul, from the many enterprises of violence 
to which an unprincipled commander had 
carried them — when I follow them to the 
field of battle, and further think, that on 
both sides of an exasperated contest— the 
gentleness of Christianity can have no place 
in almost any bosom ; but that nearly every 
heart is lighted up with fury, and breathes 
a vindictive purpose against a brother of 
the species, I cannot but reckon it among 
the most fearful of the calamities of war — 
that while the work of death is thickening 
along its ranks, so many disembodied spirits 
should pass into the presence of Him who 
sitteth upon the throne, in such a posture, 
and with such a preparation. 

I have no time, and assuredly as little 
taste, for expatiating on a topic so melan- 
choly, nor can I afford at present, to set be- 
fore you a vivid picture of the other mise- 



298 



THOUGHTS ON PEACE. 



ries which war carries in its train — how it 
desolates every country through which it 
rolls, and spreads violation and alarm 
among its villages — how, at its approach, 
every home pours forth its trembling fugi- 
tives — how all the rights of property, and 
all the provisions of justice must give way 
before its devouring exactions — how, when 
Sabbath comes, no Sabbath charm comes 
along with it — and for the sound of the 
church bell, which wont to spread its music 
over some fine landscape of nature, and 
summon rustic worshippers to the house 
of prayer — nothing is heard but the death- 
ful vollies of the battle, and the maddening 
outcry of infuriated men — how, as the fruit 
of victory, an unprincipled licentiousness, 
which no discipline can restrain, is suffered 
to walk at large among the people — and all 
that is pure, and reverend, and holy, in the 
virtue of families, is cruelly trampled on, 
and held in the bitterest derision. 

Oh ! my brethren, were we to pursue 
those details, which no pen ever attempts, 
and no chronicle perpetuates, we should be 
tempted to ask, what that is which civiliza- 
tion has done for the character of the 
species ? It has thrown a few paltry embel- 
lishments over the surface of human affairs, 
and for the order of society, it has reared 
the defences of law around the rights and 
the property of the individuals who com- 
pose it. But let war, legalized as you may, 
and ushered into the field with all the pa- 
rade of forms and manifestos — let this war 
only have its season, and be suffered to 
overleap these artificial defences, and you 
will soon see how much the security of the 
commonwealth is due to positive restric- 
tions, and how little of it is due to a natural 
sense of j ustice among men. Iknow well, that 
the plausibilities of human character which 
abound in every modern and enlightened 
society, have been mustered up to oppose 
the doctrine of the Bible, on the woful de- 
pravity of our race. But out of the history of 
war, I can gather for this doctrine the evi- 
dence of experiment. It tells me, that man 
when left to himself, and let loose among 
his fellows, to walk after the counsel of his 
own heart, and in the sight of his own eyes, 
will soon discover how thin that tinsel is, 
which the boasted hand of civilization has 
thrown over him. And we have only to 
blow the trumpet of war, and proclaim to 
man the hour of his opportunity, that his 
character may show itself in its essential 
elements — and that we may see how many, 
in this our moral and enlightened day, 
would spring forward, as to a jubilee of 
delight, and prowl like the wild men of 
the woods, amidst scenes of rapacity, and 
cruelty, and violence. 

II. But let me hasten away from this 
part of the subject, and in the second place, 
direct your attention to those obstacles 



which stand in the way of the extinction 
of war, and which threaten to retard, for 
a time, the accomplishment of the pro- 
phecy I have now selected for your consi- 
deration. 

Is this the time, it may be asked, to com- 
plain of obstacles to the extinction of war, 
when peace has been given to the nations, 
and we are assembled to celebrate its tri- 
umphs? Is this day of high and solemn 
gratulation, to be turned to such forebod- 
ings as these? The whole of Europe is 
now at rest from the tempest which con- 
vulsed it — and a solemn treaty with all its 
adjustments, and all its guarantees, pro- 
mises a firm perpetuity to the repose of 
the world. We have long fought for a hap- 
pier order of things, and at length we have 
established it — and the hard-earned bequest, 
we hand down to posterity as a rich inherit- 
ance, v on by the labours and the suffer- 
ings of the present generation. That gi- 
gantic ambition which stalked in triumph 
over the firmest and the oldest of our mo- 
narchies, is now laid — and can never again 
burst forth from the confinement of its 
prison-hold to waken a new uproar, and to 
send forth new troubles over the face of a 
desolated world. 

Now, in reply to this, let it be observed, 
that every interval of repose is precious; 
every breathing time from the work of vio- 
lence is to be rejoiced in by the friends of 
humanity; every agreement among the 
powers of the earth, by which a temporary 
respite can be gotten from the calamities 
of war, is so much reclaimed from the 
amount of those miseries that afflict the 
world, and of those crimes, the cry of 
which ascendeth unto heaven, and bringeth 
down the judgments of God on this dark 
and rebellious province of his creation. I 
trust, that on this day, gratitude to Him 
who alone can still the tumults of the peo- 
ple, will be the sentiment of every heart; 
and I trust, that none who now hear me, 
will refuse to evince his gratitude to the 
Author of the New Testament, by their 
obedience to one of the most distinct and 
undoubted of its lessons ; I mean the lesson 
of a reverential and submissive loyalty. I 
cannot pass an impartial eye over this re- 
cord of God's will, without perceiving the 
utter repugnance that there is between the 
spirit of Christianity, and the factious, tur- 
bulent, unquenchable, and ever-meddling 
spirit of political disaffection. I will not 
compromise, by the surrender of a single 
jot or tittle, the integrity of that precep- 
tive code which my Saviour hath left be- 
hind him for the obedience of his disciples. 
I will not detach the very minutest of its 
features, from the fine picture of morality 
that Christ hath bequeathed, both by com- 
mandment and example, to adorn the na- 
ture he condescended to wear — and sure I 



THOUGHTS ON PEACE. 299 



am that the man who has drunk in the en- 
tire spirit of the gospel— who, reposing 
himself on the faith of its promised immor- 
tality, can maintain an elevated calm amid 
all the fluctuations of this world's interest 
—whose exclusive ambition is to be the. 
unexcepted pupil of pure, and spiritual, 
and self-denying Christianity — sure I am 
that such a man will honour the king and 
all who are in authority — and be subject 
unto them for the sake of conscience — and 
render unto them all their dues — and not 
withhold a single fraction of the tribute 
they impose upon him — and be the best of 
subjects, just because he is the best of 
Christians — resisting none of the ordi- 
nances of God, and living a quiet and a 
peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. 

But it gives me pleasure to advance a 
further testimony in behalf of that govern- 
ment with which it has pleased God, who 
appointeth to all men the bounds of their 
habitation, to bless that portion of the globe 
that we occupy. I count it such a govern- 
ment, that I not only owe it the loyalty of 
my principles — but I also owe it the loyalty 
of my affections. I could not lightly part 
with my devotion to that government 
which the other year opened the door to 
the Christianization of India— I shall never 
withhold the tribute of rny reverence from 
that government which put an end to the 
atrocities of the Slave Trade — I shall never 
forget the triumph, which, in that proud- 
est day of Britain's glory, the cause of hu- 
manity gained within the walls of our en- 
lightened Parliament. Let my right hand 
forget her cunning, ere I forget that coun- 
try of my birth, where, in defiance to all 
the clamours of mercantile alarm, every 
calculation of interest was given to the 
wind, and braving every hazard, she nobly 
resolved to shake off the whole burden of 
infamy, which lay upon her. I shall never 
forget, that how to complete the object in 
behalf of which she has so honourably led 
the way, she has walked the whole round 
of civilized society, and knocked at the 
door of every government in Europe, and 
lifted her imploring voice for injured Africa, 
and plead with the mightiest monarchs of 
the world, the cause of her outraged shores, 
and her distracted families. I can neither 
shut my heart nor my eyes to the fact, that 
at this moment she is stretching forth the 
protection of her naval arm, and shielding, 
to the uttermost of her vigour, that coast 
where an inhuman avarice is still plying 
its guilty devices, and aiming to perpetuate 
among an unoffending people, a trade of 
cruelty, with all the horrid train of its ter- 
rors and abominations. Were such a govern- 
ment as this to be swept from its base, 
either by the violence of foreign hostility, 
or by the hands of her own misled and in- 
fatuated children— I should never cease to 



deplore it as the deadliest interruption, 
which ever had been given to the interests 
of human virtue, and to the march of hu- 
man improvement. O I how it should swell 
every heart, not with pride, but with gra- 
titude, to think that the land of our fathers, 
with all the iniquities which abound in it, 
with all the profligacy which spreads 
along our streets, and all the profaneness 
that is heard among our companies — to 
think that this our land, overspread as it is 
with the appalling characters of guilt, is 
still the securest asylum of worth and liber- 
ty — that this is the land, from which the 
most copious emanations of Christianity 
are going forth to all the quarters of the 
world — that this is the land, which teems 
from one end to the other of it with the 
most splendid designs and enterprises for 
the good of the species — that this is the 
land, where public principle is most felt, 
and public objects are most prosecuted, 
and the fine impulse of a public spirit is 
most ready to carry its generous people 
beyond the limits of a selfish and contract- 
ed patriotism. Yes, and when the heart 
of the philanthropist is sinking within him 
at the gloomy spectacle of those crimes 
and atrocities, which still deform the his- 
tory of man, I know not a single earthly 
expedient more fitted to brighten and sus- 
tain him, than to turn his eye to the coun- 
try in which he lives — and there see the 
most enlightened government in the world 
acting as the organ of its most moral and 
intelligent population. 

It is not against the government of my 
country, therefore, that I direct my ob- 
servations — but against that nature of man, 
in the infirmities of which we all share, and 
the evil of which no government can ex- 
tinguish. We have carried a new political 
arrangement, and we experience the result 
of it, a temporary calm — but we have not 
yet carried our way to the citadel of hu- 
man passions. The elements of war are 
hushed for a season — but these elements 
are not destroyed. They still rankle in 
many an unsubdued heart — and I am too 
well taught by the history of the past, and 
the experience of its restless variations, not 
to believe that they will burst forth again 
in thunder over the face of society. No, 
my brethren, it will only be when diffused 
and vital Christianity comes upon the earth, 
that an enduring peace will come along 
with it. The prophecy of my text will 
obtain its fulfilment — but not till the fulfil- 
ment of the verses which go before it ; — 
not till the influence of the gospel has 
found its way to the human bosom, and 
plucked out of it the elementary principles 
of war;— not till the law of love shall 
spread its melting and ail-subduing efficacy, 
among the children of one common nature : 
not till ambition be dethroned from its mas- 



300 



THOUGHTS ON PEACE. 



iery over the affections of the inner man ; 
— not till the guilty splendours of war shall 
cease to captivate its admirers, and spread 
the blaze of a deceitful heroism over the 
wholesale butchery of the species ; — not till 
national pride be humbled, and man shall 
learn, that if it be individually the duty of 
each of us in honour to prefer one another ; 
then let these individuals combine as they 
may, and form societies as numerous and 
extensive as they may, and each of these 
be swelled out to the dimensions of an em- 
pire, still, that mutual, condescension and 
forbearance remain the unalterable chris- 
tian duties of these empires to each other ; 
— not till man learn to revere his brother 
as man, whatever portion of the globe he 
occupies, and all the jealousies and prefer- 
ences of a contracted patriotism be given 
to the wind ; — not till war shall cease to be 
prosecuted as a trade, and the charm of all 
that interest which is linked with its con- 
tinuance, shall cease to beguile men in the 
peaceful walks of merchandise, into a bar- 
barous longing after war ; not, in one word, 
till pride, and jealous}', and interest, and 
all that is opposite to the law of God and 
the charity of the gospel, shall be for ever 
eradicated from the character of those who 
possess an effectual control over the public 
and political movements of the species ; — 
not till all this be brought about, and there 
is not another agent in the whole compass 
of nature that can bring it about but the 
gospel of Christ, carried home by the all- 
subduing power of the Spirit to the con- 
sciences of men ; — then, and not till then, 
my brethren, will peace come to take up 
its perennial abode with us, and its bless- 
ed advent on earth be hailed by one shout 
of joyful acclamation throughout all its fa- 
milies ; then, and not till then, will the 
sacred principle of good will to men circu- 
late as free as the air of heaven among all 
countries — and the sun looking out from 
the firmament, will behold one fine aspect 
of harmony throughout the wide extent of 
a regenerated world. 

It will only be in the last days, " when it 
shall come to pass, that the mountain of the 
Lord's house shall be established in the top 
of the mountains, and shall be exalted above 
the hills, and all nations shall flow into it : 
And many people shall go, and say, Come 
ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the 
Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob ; and 
he will teach us of his ways, and we will 
walk in his paths : for out of Zion shall go 
forth the law, and the word of the Lord from 
Jerusalem ; and he shall judge among the 
nations, and shall rebuke many people;" 
then and not till then, " they shall beat their 
swords into plough-shares, and their spears 
into pruning-hooks. Nation shall not lift up 
sword against nation, neither shall they 
iearn war any more." 



The above rapid sketch glances at the 
chief obstacles to the extinction of war, and 
in what remains of this discourse, I shall 
dwell a little more particularly on as many 
of them as my time will allow me, finding 
it impossible to exhaust so wide a topic, 
within the limits of the public services of 
one day. 

The first great obstacle, then, to the ex- 
tinction of war, is the way in which the 
heart of man is carried off from its barbari- 
ties and its horrors, by the splendour of 
its deceitful accompaniments. There is a 
feeling of the sublime in contemplating the 
shock of armies, just as there is in contem- 
plating the devouring energy of a tempest, 
and this so elevates and engrosses the whole 
man, that his eye is blind to the tears of 
bereaved parents, and his ear is deaf to the 
piteous moan of the dying, and the shriek 
of their desolated families. There is a grace- 
fulness in the picture of a youthful warrior 
burning for distinction on the field, and 
lured by this generous aspiration to the 
deepest of the animated throng, where, in 
the fell work of death, the opposing sons of 
valour struggle for a remembrance and a 
name ; and this side of the picture is so much 
the exclusive object of our regard, as to dis- 
guise from our view the mangled carcases 
of the fallen, and the writhing agonies of the 
hundreds and the hundreds more who have 
been laid on the cold ground, where they 
are left to languish and to die. There no 
eye pities them. No sister is there to weep 
over them. There no gentle hand is present 
to ease the dying posture, or bind up the 
wounds, which, in the maddening fury of 
the combat, have been given and received 
by the children of one common father. 
There death spreads its pale ensigns over 
every countenance, and when night comes 
on, and darkness around them, how many 
a despairing wretch must take up with the 
bloody field as the untended bed of his last 
sufferings, without one friend to bear the 
message of tenderness to his distant home, 
without one companion to^lose his eyes. 

I avow it. On every side of me I see 
causes at work which go to spread a most 
delusive colouring over war, and to remove 
its shocking barbarities to the back ground 
of our contemplations altogether. I see it in 
the history which tells me of the superb ap- 
pearance of the troops, and the brilliancy 
of their successive charges. I see it in the 
poetry which lends the magic of its numbers 
to the narrative of blood, and transports its 
many admirers, as by its images, and its 
figures, and its nodding plumes of chivalry, 
it throws its treacherous embellishments 
over a scene of legalized slaughter. I see it 
in the music which represents the progress 
of the battle ; and where, after being inspired 
by the trumpet-notes of preparation, the 
whole beauty and tenderness of a drawing- 



THOUGHTS 

room are seen to bend over the sentimental 
entertainment ; nor do I hear the utterance 
of a single sigh to interrupt the death-tones 
of the thickening contest, and the moans of 
the wounded men as they fade away upon 
the ear, and sink into lifeless silence. All, 
all goes to prove what strange and half- 
sighted creatures we are. Were it not so, 
war could never have been seen in any 
other aspect than that of unmingled hate- 
fulness ; and I can look to nothing but to the 
progress of christian sentiment upon earth, 
to arrest the strong current of its popular 
and prevailing partiality for war. Then only 
will an imperious sense of duty lay the check 
of severe principle, on all the subordinate 
tastes and faculties of our nature. Then will 
glory be reduced to its right estimate, and 
the wakeful benevolence of the gospel chas- 
ing away every spell, will be turned by the 
treachery of no delusion whatever, from its 
simple but sublime enterprises for the good 
of the species. Then the reign of truth and 
quietness will be ushered into the world, and 
war, cruel, atrocious, unrelenting war, will 
be stript of its many and its bewildering 
fascinations. 

But again, another obstacle to the extinc- 
tion of war, is a sentiment which seems to 
be universally gone into, that the rules and 
promises of the gospel which apply to a 
single individual, do not apply to a nation 
of individuals. Just think of the mighty 
effect it would have on the politics of the 
world, were this sentiment to be practically 
deposed from its wonted authority over the 
counsels and the doings of nations, in their 
transactions with each other. If forbearance 
be the virtue of an individual, forbearance 
is also the virtue of a nation. If it be incum- 
bent on men in honour to prefer each other, 
it is incumbent on the very largest societies 
of men, through the constituted organ of 
their government to do the same. If it be 
the glory of a man to defer his anger, and 
to pass over a transgression, that nation 
mistakes its glory which is so feelingly alive 
to the slightest insult, and musters up its 
threats and its armaments upon the faintest 
shadow of a provocation. If it be the mag- 
nanimity of an injured man to abstain from 
vengeance, and if by so doing, he heaps coals 
of fire upon the head of his enemy, then 
that is the magnanimous nation, which, re- 
coiling from violence and from blood, will 
do no more than send its christian embassy, 
and prefer its mild and impressive remon- 
strance; and that is the disgraced nation 
which will refuse the impressiveness of the 
moral appeal that has been made to it.— O ! 
my brethren, there must be the breathing 
of a different spirit to circulate round the 
globe, ere its christianized nations resign the 
jealousies which now front them to each 
other in the scowling attitude of defiance; 
and much is to do with the people of every 



on peace. 301 

land, ere the propnesied influence of the 
gospel shall bring its virtuous, and its paci- 
fying controul to bear with effect on the 
counsels and governments of the world. 

I find that I must be drawing to a close, 
and that I must forbear entering into several 
topics on which I meant at one time to ex- 
patiate. I wished, in particular, to have laid 
it fully before you how the extinction of 
war, though it should withdraw one of those 
scenes on which man earns the glory of in- 
trepidity ; yet it would leave other, and bet- 
ter, and nobler scenes, for the display and 
the exercise of this respectable attribute. I 
wished also to explain to you, that however 
much I admired the general spirit of Qua- 
kerism, on the subject of war; yet that I was 
not prepared to go all the length of its prin- 
ciples, when that war was strictly defensive. 
It strikes me, that war is to be abolished by 
the abolition of its aggressive spirit among 
the different nations of the world. The text 
seems to tell me that this is the order of 
prophecy upon the subject; and that it is 
when nation shall cease to lift up its sword 
against nation; or, in other words, when one 
nation shall cease to move, for the purpose 
of attacking another, that military science 
will be no longer in demand, and that the 
people of the earth will learn the art of war 
no more I should also have stated, that on 
this ground, I refrained from pronouncing 
on the justice or necessity of any one war 
in which this country has ever been involved. 
I have no doubt that many of those who 
supported our former wars, looked on seve- 
ral of them as wars for existence ; but on 
this matter I carefully abstain from the ut- 
terance of a single sentiment ; for in so doing, 
I should feel myself to be descending from 
the generalities of christian principle, and 
employing that pulpit as the vehicle of a 
questionable policy, which ought never to 
be prostituted either to the unworthy object 
of sending forth the incense of human flat- 
tery to any one administration, or of regal- 
ing the factious, and turbulent, and disloyal 
passions of any party. I should next, if I 
had time, offer such observations as were 
suggested by my own views of political 
science, on the multitude of vulnerable 
points by which this country is surrounded, 
in the shape of numerous and distant de- 
pendencies, and which, however much they 
may tend to foster the warlike politics of 
our government, are, in truth, so little worth 
the expense of a war, that should all of them 
be wrested away from us, they would leave 
the people of our empire as great, and as 
wealthy, and as competent to every purpose 
of home security as ever. Lastly, I might 
have whispered my inclination, for a little 
more of the Chinese policy being imported 
into Europe, not for the purpose of restrain- 
ing a liberal intercourse between its different 
countries, but for the purpose of quieting in 



302 THOUGHTS 

each its restless spirit of alarm, about every 
foreign movement in the politics and designs 
of other nations; because, sure I am, that 
were each great empire of the world to lay 
it down as the maxim of its most scrupulous 
observance, not to meddle till it was med- 
dled with, each would feel in such a maxim 
both its safety and its triumph; — for such 
are the mighty resources of defensive war, 
that though the whole transportable force 
of Europe were to land upon our borders, 
the result of the experiment would be such, 
that it should never be repeated — the rally- 
ing population of Britain could sweep them 
all from the face of its territory, and a whole 
myriad of invaders would melt away under 
the power of such a government as ours, 
trenched behind the loyalty of her defen- 
ders, and strong, as she deserves to be, in 
the love and in the confidence of all her 
children. 

I would not have touched on any of the 
lessons of political economy, did they not 
lead me, by a single step, to a christian les- 
son, which I count it my incumbent duty 
to press upon the attention of you all. Any 
sudden change in the state of the demand, 
must throw the commercial world into a 
temporary derangement. And whether the 
change be from war to peace, or from peace 
to war, this effect is sure to accompany it. 
Now for upwards of twenty years, the direc- 
tion of our trade has been accommodated to 
a war system, and when this system is put 
an end to, I do not say what amount of the 
distress will light upon this neighbourhood, 
but we may be sure that all the alarm of 
falling markets, and ruined speculation, will 
spread an impressive gloom over many of 
the manufacturing districts of the land. 
Now, let my title to address you on other 
grounds, be as questionable as it may, I feel 
no hesitation whatever in announcing it, as 
your most imperative duty, that no outcry 
of impatience or discontent from you, shall 
embarrass the pacific policy of his majesty's 
government. They have conferred a great 
blessing on the country, in conferring on it 
peace, and it is your part resignedly to 
weather the languid or disasterous months 
which may come along with it. The interest 
of trade is an old argument that has been 
set up in resistance to the dearest and most 
substantial interests of humanity. 

When Paul wanted to bring Christianity 
into Ephesus, he raised a storm of opposi- 
tion around him, from a quarter which, I 
dare say, he was not counting on. There 
happened to be some shrine manufactories 
in that place, and as the success of the 
Apostle would infallibly have reduced the 
demand for that article, forth came the de- 
cisive argument of, Sirs, by this craft we 
have our wealth, and should this Paul turn 
away the people from the worship of gods 
made with hands, thereby much damage 



ON PEACE. 

would accrue to our trade. Why, my bre- 
thren, if this argument is to be admitted, 
there is not one conceivable benefit that can 
be offered for the acceptance of the species. 
Would it not be well if all the men of read- 
ing in the country were to be diverted from 
the poison which lurks in many a mischiev- 
ous publication — and should this blessed re- 
formation be effected, are there none to be 
found who would feel that much damage 
had accrued to their trade? Would it not 
be well, if those wretched sons of pleasure, 
before whom if they repent not, there lieth 
all the dreariness of an unprovided eternity 
— would it not be well, that they were re- 
claimed from the maddening intoxication 
which speeds them on in the career of dis- 
obedience — and on this event, too, would 
there be none to complain that much damage 
had accrued to their trade? Is it not well, 
that the infamy of the slave trade has been 
swept from the page of British history? and 
yet do not many of you remember how long 
the measure lay suspended, and that about 
twenty annual flotillas, burdened with the 
load of human wretchedness, were wafted 
across the Atlantic, while Parliament was 
deafened and overborne by unceasing clam- 
ours about the much damage that would 
accrue to the trade? And now, is it not well 
that peace has once more been given to the 
nations? and are you to follow up this 
goodly train of examples, by a single whis- 
per of discontent about the much damage 
that will accrue to your trade? No, my bre- 
thren, I will not let down a single inch of 
the christian requirement that lies upon you. 
Should a sweeping tide of bankruptcy set in 
upon the land, and reduce every individual 
who now hears me, to the very humblest 
condition in society, God stands pledged to 
give food and raiment to all who depend 
upon him; — and it is not fair to make others 
bleed, that you may roll in affluence; — it is 
not fair to desolate thousands of families, 
that yours may be upheld in luxury and 
splendour — and your best, and noblest, and 
kindest part is, to throw yourselves on the 
promises of God, and he will hide you and 
your little ones in the secret of his pavilion 
till these calamities be overpast. 

III. I trust it is evident from all that has 
been said, how it is only by the extension 
of christian principle among the people of 
the earth, that the atrocities of war will at 
length be swept away from it ; and that 
each of us in hastening the commencement 
of that blissful period, in his own sphere, is 
doing all that in him lies to bring his own 
heart, and the hearts of others, under the 
supreme influence of this principle. It is 
public opinion, which in the long run go- 
verns the world ; and while I look with 
confidence to a gradual revolution in the 
state of public opinion from the omnipo- 
tence of gospel truth working its silent, but 



THOUGHTS 

effectual way, through the families of man- 
kind—yet I will not deny that much maybe 
done to accelerate the advent of perpetual 
and universal peace, by a distinct body 
of men embarking their every talent, and 
their every acquirement in the prosecution 
of this, as a distinct object. This was the 
way in which, a few j^ears ago, the British 
public were gained over to the cause of 
Africa. This is the way in which some of 
the other prophecies of the Bible are at this 
moment hastening to their accomplish- 
ment ; and it is this way, I apprehend, that 
the prophecy of my text may be indebted 
for its speedier fulfilment to the agency of 
men selecting this as the assigned field on 
which their philanthropy shall expatiate. 
Were each individual member of such a 
scheme to prosecute his own walk, and 
come forward with his own peculiar con- 
tribution, the fruit of the united labours of 
all would be one of the finest collections of 
christian eloquence, and of enlightened mo- 
rals, and of sound political philosophy, that 
ever was presented to the world. I could 
not fasten on another cause more fitted to 
call forth such a variety of talent, and to 
rally around it so many of the generous 
and accomplished sons of humanity, and to 
give each of them a devotedness, and a 
power far beyond whatever could be sent 
into the hearts of enthusiasts, by the mere 
impulse of literary ambition. 

Let one take up the question of war in its 
principle, and make the full weight of his 
moral severity rest upon it, and upon all 
its abominations. Let another take up the 
question of war in its consequences, and 
bring his every power of graphical descrip- 
tion to the task of presenting an awakened 
public with an impressive detail of its cruel- 



0N peace. 303 

ties and its horrors. Let another neutralize 
the poetry of war, and dismantle it of all 
those bewitching splendours, which the hand 
of misguided genius has thrown over it. 
Let another teach the world a truer, and 
more magnanimous path to national glory, 
than any country of the world has yet 
walked in. Let another tell with irresisti- 
ble argument, how the christian ethics of a 
nation is at one with the christian ethics of 
its humblest individual. Let another bring 
all the resources of his political science to 
unfold the vast energies of defensive war, 
and show, that instead of that ceaseless 
jealousy and disquietude, which are ever 
keeping alive the flame of hostility among 
the nations, each may wait in prepared se- 
curity, till the first footstep of an invader 
shall be the signal for mustering around, 
the standard ot its outraged rights, all the 
steel, and spirit, and patriotism of the 
country. Let another pour the light of mo- 
dern speculation into the mysteries of trade 
and prove that not a single war has been 
undertaken for any of its objects, where the 
millions and the millions more which were 
lavished on the cause, have not all been 
cheated away from us by the phantom of 
an imaginary interest. This may look to 
many like the Utopianism of a romantic 
anticipation — but I shall never despair of 
the cause of truth addressed to a christian 
public, when the clear light of principle 
can be brought to every one of its positions, 
and when its practical and conclusive es- 
tablishment forms one of the most distinct of 
Heaven's prophecies — " that men shall beat 
their swords into plough-shares, and their 
spears into pruning-hooks — and that nation 
shall not lift up sword against nation, neither 
shall they learn the art of war any more." 



THE DUTY 



OF 

GIVING AN IMMEDIATE DILIGENCE TO THE BUSINESS OF 
THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 



BEING AN 

ADDRESS 

TO THE INHABITANTS OF THE PARISH OF KILMANY. 



When one writes a letter to an intimate, 
and a much loved friend, he never thinks of 
the graces of the composition. He unbosoms 
himself in a style of per feet freeness and sim- 
plicity. He gives way to the kindly affec- 
tions of his heart, and though there may be 
many touches of tenderness in his perform- 
ance, it is not because he aims at touches of 
any kind, but because all the tenderness that 
is written, is the genuine and the artless 
transcript of all the tenderness that is felt. 
Now conceive for a moment, that he wrote 
his letter under the consciousness that it 
was to be broadly exhibited before the eye 
of the public, this would immediately ope- 
rate as a heavy restraint upon him. A man 
would much rather pour the expression of 
his friendship into the private ear of him 
who was the object of it, than he would do 
it under the full stare of a numerous com- 
pany. And I, my brethren, could my time 
have allowed it, would much rather have 
written my earnest and longing aspiration 
for the welfare of you all by a private letter 
to each individual, than by this general 
Address, which necessarily exposes to the 
wide theatre of the public all that I feel, and 
all that I utter on the subject of my affec- 
tionate regard for you. 

It were better, then, for the exercise to 
which I have now set myself, that I shut 
out all idea of the public ; and never, with- 
in the whole recollection of my life, was I 
less disposed to foster that idea. It may 
be observed, that the blow of some great 
and calamitous visitation brings a kind of 
insensibility along with it. I ought not to 
lament my withdrawment from you as a 
calamity, but it has had all the effect of a 
calamity upon me. I am removed from 
those objects which habitually interested 
my heart, and, for a time, it refuses to be 
interested in other objects. I am placed at 



a distance from that scene to which I was 
most alive, and I feel a deadness to every 
other scene. The people who are now 
around me, carry an unquestionable kind- 
ness in their bosoms, and vie with one an- 
other in the expression of it. I can easily 
perceive that there exists abundantly among 
them all the constituents of a highly inter- 
esting neighbourhood, and it may look cold 
and ungrateful in me that I am not interest- 
ed. But it takes a time before the heart can 
attune itself to the varieties of a new situa- 
tion. It is ever recurring to the more fa- 
miliar scenes of other days. The present 
ministers no enjoyment, and in looking to 
the past the painful circumstance is, that 
while the fancy will not be kept from stray- 
ing to that neighbourhood which exercises 
over it all the power of a much-loved home, 
the idea that it is home no longer comes 
with dread reality upon the mind, and turns 
the whole to bitterness. 

With a heart thus occupied, I do not feel 
that the admission of the public into our 
conference will be any great restraint upon 
me. I shall speak to you as if they were 
not present, and I do not conceive that they 
can take a great interest in what I say, be- 
cause I have no time for the full and ex- 
plicit statement of principles. I have this 
advantage with you that I do not have with 
others, that with you I can afford to be less 
explicit. I presume upon your recollec- 
tions of what I have, for some time, been 
in the habit of addressing to you, and flat- 
ter myself that you may enter into a train 
of observation which to others may appear 
dark, and abrupt, and unconnected. In 
penning this short Address, I follow the im- 
pulse of my regard for you. You will re- 
ceive it with indulgence, as a memorial 
from one who loves you, who is ever with 
you in heart, though not in person ; who 



DUTY OF DILIGENCE IN 



THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 



305 



classes among the dearest of his recollec- 
tions, the tranquil enjoyments he has had 
in your neighbourhood ; who carries upon 
his memory the faithful image of its fields 
and of its families ; and whose prayers for 
you all is, that you may so grow in the 
fruits of our common faith, as to be made 
meet for that unfading inheritance where 
sorrow and separation are alike unknown. 

Were I to sit down for the purpose of 
drawing out a list of all the actions which 
may be called sinful, it would be long be- 
fore I could complete the enumeration. 
Nay, I can conceive, that by adding one 
peculiarity after another, the variety may 
be so lengthened out as to make the attempt 
impossible. Lying, and stealing, and break- 
ing the Sabbath, and speaking evil one of an- 
other, these are all so many sinful actions ; 
but circumstances may be conceived which 
make one kind of lying different fom an- 
other, and one kind of theft different from 
another, and one kind of evil speaking 
different from another, and in this way the 
number of sinful actions may be greatly 
swelled out ; and should we attempt to take 
the amount, they may be like the host 
which no man could number, and every 
sinner, realizing one of these varieties, may 
wear his own peculiar complexion, and 
have a something about him, which marks 
him out, and signalizes him from all the 
other sinners by whom he is surrounded. 

Yet, amid all this variety of visible as- 
pect, there is one summary expression to 
which all sin may be reduced. There is 
one principle which, if it always existed in 
the heart, and were always acted upon in 
the life, would entirely destroy the exis- 
tence of sin, and the very essence of sin 
lies in the want of this one principle. Sin 
is a want of conformity to the will of God ; 
and were a desire to do the will of God at 
all times the overruling principle of the 
heart and conduct, there would be no sin. 
It is this want of homage to him and to his 
authority, which gives to sin its essential 
I ' character. The evil things coming out of 
: 1 the heart, which is the residence of this evil 
, principle, may be exceedingly various, and 
may impart a very different complexion to 
different individuals. This complexion may 
I be more or less displeasing to the outward 
i eye. The evil speaker may look to us more 
hateful than the voluptuary, the man of 
cruelty than the man of profaneness, the 
breaker of his word than the breaker of the 
j Sabbath. 1 believe it will generally be found, 
' that the sin which inflicts the more visible 
j and immediate harm upon men, is, in the 
eye of men, the more hateful sin. There 
is a readiness to execrate falsehood, and 
calumny, and oppression ; and along with 
this readiness there is an indulgence for 
the good-humoured failings of him who is 
the slave of luxury, and makes a god of his 
2Q 



pleasure, and spends his days in all the 
thoughtlessness of one who walks in the 
counsel of his own heart, and in the sight 
of his own eyes, provided that his love of 
society leads him to share with others the 
enjoyment of all these gratifications, -and 
his wealth enables him, and his moral 
honesty inclines him, to defray the expense 
of them. 

Behold, then, one frequent source of de- 
lusion. He whose sins are less hateful to 
the w r oiid than those of others, wraps up 
himself in a kind of security. I wrong no 
man. I have a heart that can be moved by 
the impulses of compassion. I carry in my 
bosom a lively sentiment of indignation at 
the tale of perfidy or violence ; and surely 
I may feel a satisfaction which others have 
no title to feel, who are guilty of that from 
which my nature recoils with a generous 
abhorrence. He forgets all the while, that 
sin, in its essential character, may have as 
full and firm a possession of his heart, as 
of the man's with whom he is comparing 
himself: that there may be an entire dis- 
ownal and forgetfulness of God; that not 
one particle of reverence, or of acknowledg- 
ment, may be given to the Being with 
whom he has to do ; that whatever he may 
be in the eye of his neighbour, in the eye 
of him who seeth not as man seeth, he is 
guilty; that, walking just as he would have 
done though there had been no divine 
government whatever, he is a rebel to that 
government ; and that amid all the com- 
placency of his own feelings, and all the 
applause and good liking of his acquaint- 
ances, he wears all the deformity of rebel- 
liousness in the eye of every spiritual 
being, who looks at the state of his heart, 
and passes judgment upon him by those 
very principles Which are to try him at the 
great day when the secrets of all hearts 
shall be laid open. 

If this were kept in view, it would lead 
to a more enlightened estimate of the cha- 
racter of man, than man in the thought- 
lessness and unconcern of his natural state 
ever forms. It would lead us to see, that 
under all the hues and varieties of charac- 
ter, diversified as they are by constitutional 
taste, and the power of circumstances, there 
lurks one deep and universal disease, and 
that is the disease of a mind labouring un- 
der alienation from God, and without any 
practical sense of what is due to him. You 
will all admit it to be true, that the heart of 
a man may be under the full operation of 
this deadly poison, while the man himself 
has a constitutional taste for the pleasures 
of social intercourse. You see nothing un- 
likely or impossible in this combination. 
Now I want you to go along with me, when 
I carry my assertion still further ; and sure 
I am that experience bears me out when I 
say, that the heart of a man may be under 



306 



DUTY OF DILIGENCE IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 



the full operation of a dislike or indiffer- 
ence to God, while the man himself has 
a constitutional abhorrence at cruelty, a 
constitutional repugnance to fraud, a con- 
stitutional antipathy to what is uncour- 
teous in manners, or harsh and unfeeling 
in conversation, a constitutional gentleness 
of character; or, to sum up the whole in 
one clause, a man may be free from many 
things which give him a moral hatefulness 
in the eye of others, and he may have 
many things which throw a moral loveli- 
ness around him, and the soul be under the 
entire dominion of that carelessness about 
God, which gives to sin its essential cha- 
racter. And upon him, even upon him, 
graceful and engaging as he may be by the 
lustre of his many accomplishments, the 
saying of the Bible does not fail of being 
realised, that " the heart of man is deceitful 
above all things, and desperately wicked ; 
who can know it?" 

And thus it is, that our great and ulti- 
mate aim in the reformation of a sinner, is 
the reformation of his heart. There may 
be many reformations short of this, and in 
which many are disposed to rest with de- 
ceitful complacency. I can conceive, that 
the man who formerly stole may steal no 
more, not because he is now sanctified, 
and feels the obligation of religious princi- 
ple, but because he is now translated into 
better circumstances, and by the power of 
example, has contracted that tone of ho- 
nourable feeling which exists among the 
upper classes of society. Here, then, is a 
reformation of the conduct, while the heart, 
in respect of that which constitutes its ex- 
ceeding sinfulness, is no better than before. 
The old leaven of ungodliness may over- 
spread its every desire, and its every affec- 
tion; and while the outer man has been 
washed of one of its visible deformities, the 
inner man may still persist in Its un mind- 
fulness of God ; and the pollution of this 
greatest and vilest of all moral turpitude, 
may adhere to it as obstinately as ever. 

Now, it appears to me, that these views, 
true in themselves, and deserving to be 
carried along with us through every inch 
of our religious progress, have often been 
practically misapplied. I can conceive an 
inquirer under the influence of these views, 
to fail into such a process of reflection as 
the following : ' If the outer conduct be of 
no estimation in the sight of God, unless it 
stand connected with the actings of a holy 
principle in the heart, let us begin with the 
heart, and from the establishment of a holy 
principle there, purity of conduct will fol- 
low as an effect of course. Let us beware 
of laying an early stress upon the doings of 
the outer man, lest we and others should 
have our eye turned from the reformation 
of the inner man, as the main and almost i 
the exclusive object of a Christian's ambi-l 



I tion. Let us be fearful how we urge such 
and such visible reformations, either upon 
ourselves or those around us, lest they be 
made to stand in the place of that grand 
renewing process, by which the soul, dead 
in trespasses and sins, is made alive unto 
God. Let us labour to impress the neces- 
sity of this process, and seeing the utter 
inability of man to change his own heart, 
let us turn his eye from any exertions of 
his own, to that fulness which is in Christ 
Jesus, through whom alone he can obtain 
the forgiveness of all his sins, and such a 
measure of power resting upon him, as 
carries along with it all the purifying in- 
fluences of a spiritual reformation. In the 
mean time, let us take care how we speak 
about good works. Let the very mention 
of them put us into the defensive attitude 
of coldness and suspicion ; and instead of 
giving our earnestness or our energy to 
them, let us press upon ourselves and 
others the exercises of that faith, by which 
alone we are made the workmanship of God, 
and created unto such good works as he 
hath ordained that we should walk in them.' 

Now, there is a great deal of truth through- 
out the whole of this train of sentiment ; 
but truth contemplated under such an as- 
pect, and turned to such a purpose, as has 
the effect of putting an inquirer into a prac- 
tical attitude, which appears to me to be 
unscriptural and wrong. I would not have 
him keep his hand for a single moment 
from the doing of that which is obviously 
right. I would not have him to refrain 
from grappling immediately with every 
one sin which is within the reach of his 
exertions. 1 would not have him to incur 
the delay of one instant in ceasing to do 
that which is evil ; and I conceive that it is 
not till this is begun that he will learn to 
do that which is well. It ought not to re- 
strain the energy of his immediate doing, 
that he is told how doings are of no ac- 
count, unless they are the doings of one 
who has gone through a previous regenera- 
tion. This ought not to keep him from 
doing. It should only lead him to com- 
bine with the prescribed doing, an earnest 
aspiring after a cleaner heart, and a better 
spirit than he yet finds himself to have. It 
is very true, that a man may do an out- 
wardly good thing, and rest in what he has 
done. But it is as true, that a man may do 
the outwardly good thing he is bidden do, 
and, instead of resting, may look forward 
with diligent striving, and earnest, humble 
prayer, to some greater things than this. 
Now, this last my brethren, is the attitude 
I want to put you into. Let the thief give 
up his stealing at this moment. Let the 
drunkard give up his intemperance. Let 
the evil speaker give up his calumnies. Let 
the doer of all that is obviously wrong 
break off his sins, and turn him to the 



DUTY OF DILIGENCE IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 



30? 



doing of all that is obviously right. Let 
no one thing, not even the speculations of 
orthodoxy, *~be suffered to stand a barrier 
against your entrance into the field of im- 
mediate exertion. I raise the very first 
blow of my trumpet against the visible ini- 
quities which I see to be in you. and if 
there be any one obviously right thing you 
have hitherto neglected, I will not consume 
one particle of time before I call upon you 
to do it. 

It is quite in vain to say that all this is 
not called for, or that I am now spending 
my strength and your time in combating 
an error which has no practical existence. 
You must be quite familiarised with the 
melancholy spectacle of a zealous professor 
mourning over the sinfulness of his heart, 
and, at the same time putting forth his 
hand, without one sigh of remorse, to what 
is sinful in ordinary conduct. Have you 
never witnessed one, who could speak evil 
of his neighbour, and was at the same time 
trenching among what he thought the spe- 
culations of orthodoxy, and made the utter 
corruption of the soul of man one of these 
speculations ? Is it not enough to say that 
he is a mere speculative Christian? for the 
very same thing may be detected in the 
practice of one who feels a real longing to 
be delivered from the power of that sin, 
which he grieves has such an entire do- 
minion over him. And yet, strange to tell, 
there is many an obvious and every-day sin, 
which is not watched against, which is not 
struggled against, and the commission of 
which gives no uneasiness whatever. The 
man is, as it were, so much occupied with 
the sinfulness of his heart, that he neither 
feels nor attends to the sinfulness of his con- 
duct. He wants to go methodically to work. 
He wants to begin at the beginning, and he 
forms his estimate of what the beginning is 
upon the arrangements of human specula- 
tions. 

It sounds very plausibly, that as out of 
the heart are the issues of life, the work of 
an inquiring Christian must begin there; 
but the mischief I complain of is, that in 
the first prosecution of this work, months 
or years may be consumed ere the purified 
fountain send forth its streams, or the re- 
pentance he is aspiring after tell on the 
plain and palpable doings of his ordinary 
conduct. Hence, my brethren, the morti- 
fying exhibition of great zeal, and much 
talk, and diligent canvassing and conversing 
about the abstract principles of the chris- 

* Sorry should I be, if a term expressive of right 
notions on the most interesting of all subjects, 
were used by me with a levity at all calculated to 
beget an indifference to the soundness of your re- 
ligious opinion, or to divert your most earnest at- 
tention from those inquiries, which have for their 
object the true will, and the true way of God for 
the salvation of men. 



tian faith, combined with what is visible in 
the christian practice, being at a dead stand, 
and not one inch of sensible progress being 
made in any one thing which the eye can 
witness, or the hand can lay a tangible 
hold upon. The man is otherwise employed. 
He is busy with the first principles of the 
subject. He still goes on with his wonted 
peevishness within doors, and his wonted 
dishonesties without doors. He has not yet 
come to these matters. He is taken up with 
laying and labouring at the foundation. The 
heart is the great subject of his anxiety ; 
and in the busy exercise of mourning, and 
confessing, and praying, and studying the 
right management of his heart, he may take 
up months or years before he come to the 
deformities of his outward and ordinary 
conduct. I will venture to go farther, my 
brethren, and assert, that if this be the track 
he is on, it will be a great chance if he ever 
come to them at all. To the end of his days 
he may be a talking, and inquiring, and 
speculating, and I doubt not, along with all 
this, a church-going and ordinance-loving 
Christian. But I am much afraid that he is, 
practically speaking, not in the way to the 
solid attainments of a Christian, whose light, 
shines before men. All that meets the eya 
of daily observers, may have undergone no 
change whatever, and the life of the poor 
man maybe nothing better than the dream 
of a delusive and bewildering speculation. 

Now, it is very true that, agreeably to the 
remarks with which I prefaced this argu- 
ment, the great and ultimate aim of all re- 
formation is to reform the heart, and to 
bring it into such a state of principle and 
desire, that God may be glorified in soul 
and in spirit, as well as in body. This is 
the point that is ever to be sought after, and 
ever to be pressed forward to. Under a sense 
of his deficiencies from this point, a true 
Christian will read diligently, that he may 
learn the gospel method of arriving at it. 
He will pray diligently that the clean heart 
may be created, and the right spirit may be 
renewed within him. The earnestness of 
his attention to this matter will shut him up 
more and more into the faith of that perfect 
sacrifice, which his short-comings from a 
holy and heart-searching law will ever re- 
mind him of, as the firm and the only ground 
of his acceptance with God. The same ho- 
nest reliance on the divine testimony, which 
leads him to close with the doctrine of the 
atonement, and to rejoice in it, will also lead 
him to close with the doctrine of sanctifica- 
tion, and diligently to aspire after it. Now, 
in the business of so aspiring after this ob- 
ject, it is not enough that he read diligently 
in the Word ; it is not enough that he pray 
diligently for the Spirit. These are two in- 
gredients in the business of seeking after 
his object, but they are not the only ones ; 
and what I lament is, that a fear about the 



308 



DUTY OF DILIGENCE IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 



entireness of his orthodoxy leads many a 
zealous inquirer to look coldly and askance 
at another ingredient in this business. He 
should not only read diligently, and pray 
diligently, but he should do diligently every 
one right thing that is within his reach, and 
that he finds himself to have strength tor. 

Any one author who talks of the insig- 
nificance of doings, in such a way as practi- 
cally to restrain an inquirer from vigorously 
and immediately entering upon the perform- 
ance of them, misleads that inquirer from 
the scriptural method, by which we are di- 
rected to a greater measure of light and of 
holiness than we are yet in possession of. 
He detaches one essential ingredient from 
the business of seeking. He may set the 
spirit of his reader a roaming over some 
field of airy speculation ; but he works no 
such salutary effect upon his spirit, as 
evinces itself by any one visible or substan- 
tial reformation. I have often and often 
attempted to press this lesson upon you, my 
brethren ; and I bear you testimony, that, 
while a resistance to practical preaching 
has been imputed to the zealous professors 
of orthodoxy, you listened with patience, 
and I trust not without fruit, when address- 
ing you as if you had just begun to stir 
yourselves in the matter of your salvation, 
I ranked it among my preliminary instruc- 
tions, that you should cease from the evil 
of your doings ; that you should give up all 
that you know to be wrong in your ordi- 
nary conduct ; that the thief should restrain 
himself from stealing, the liar from false- 
hood, the evil speaker from backbiting, the 
slothful labourer in the field from eye-ser- 
vice, the faithless housemaid in the family 
from all purloining and all idleness. 

The subterfuges of hypocrisy are endless; 
and if it can find one in a system of theo- 
logy, it will be as glad of it from that quar- 
ter c*s from any other. Some there are who 
deafen the impressions of all these direct 
and immediate admonitions, by saying, that 
before all these doings are insisted on, we 
must lay well and labour well at the foun- 
dation of faith in Christ, without whom 
we can do nothing. The truth, that with- 
out Christ we can do nothing, is unquestion- 
able ; but it would take many a paragraph 
to expose its want of application to the use 
that is thus made of it. But to cut short 
this plea of indolence for delaying the pain- 
ful work of surrendering all that is vicious 
in conduct ; let me put it to your common 
sense whether a thief would not, and could 
not give up stealing for a week, if he had 
the reward of a fortune waiting him at the 
end of it ; whether, upon the same reward, 
an evil speaker could not, for the same time, 
impose a restraint upon his lips, and the 
slothful servant become a most pains-taking 
and diligent worker, and the liar maintain 
an undeviating truth throughout all his con- 



versations. Each of these would find him 
self to have strength for these things, were 
the inducement of a certain temporal re- 
ward held out, or the dread of a certain 
temporal punishment were made to hang 
over him Now, for the temporal punish- 
ment, I substitute the call of, " Flee from 
the coming wrath." Let this call have the 
effect it should have, and the effect it actually 
does have, on many who are not warped 
by a misleading speculation, and it will 
make them stir up such strength as they 
possess, and give up, indeed, much of their 
actual misconduct. This effect it had in the 
days of John the Baptist. People, on his 
call, gave up their violence and their extor- 
tions, and the evil of many of their doings, 
and were thus put into what God in his 
wisdom counted a fit state of preparation 
for the Saviour. If there was any thing in 
the revelation of the Gospel calculated to 
supersede this call of, "Cease you from the 
evil of your doings," then I could under- 
stand the indifference, or the positive hos- 
tility of zealous pretenders to the work of 
addressing practical exhortation to inquirers 
at the very outset of their progress. But so 
far from being superseded by any thing 
that the Gospel lays before us, the Author, 
and the first preachers of the Gospel, just 
took up the lesson of John, and at the very 
commencement of their ministry did they 
urge it upon people to turn them from the 
evil of their doings. Repent and believe the 
Gospel, says our Saviour. Repent and turn 
unto God, and do works meet for repent- 
ance, says the apostle PauL And there 
must be something wrong, my brethren, if 
you resist me urging it upon you, to give 
up at this moment, even though it should 
be the first moment of your concern about 
salvation, to give up all that is obviously 
wrong ; to turn you to all that is obviously 
right; to grapple with every sin you can 
lay your hand upon ; and if it be true, in 
point of experience and common sense, that 
many a misdeed may be put away from 
you on the allurement of some temporal 
reward ; then if you have faith in the reality 
of eternal things, the hope of an escape from 
the coming wrath may and will tell imme- 
diately upon you, and we shall see among 
you a stir, and a diligence, and a doing, and 
a visible reformation. 

It is a great matter to chase away all mys- 
ticism from the path by which a sinner is 
led unto God ; and it is to be lamented that 
many a speculation of many a respected di- 
vine, has "the effect of throwing a darkening 
cloud of perplexity over the very entrance 
of this path. I tell you a very plain thing, 
and, if it be true, it is surely of importance 
that you should know it, when I tell 3^011, 
that if you are a servant, and are visited 
with a desire after salvation, then a faithful 
performance of your daily task is a step 



DUTY OF DILIGENCE IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 



309 



without which the object you aim at is un- 
attainable. If you are a son, a more punc- 
tual fulfilment of yonr parent's bidding is 
another step. If you are a neighbour, a 
more civil and obliging deportment to those 
around you is another step. If you are a 
dealer, the adoption of a just weight and a 
just measure is another step. There are 
some whQj afraid of your attempting to get 
acceptance with God by the merit of your 
own doings, would not venture to urge all 
this at the outset, lest they should lead you 
to rest on a delusive ground of confidence. 
They would try to get a perfect and a clear 
understanding of the right ground of ac- 
ceptance established, previous to the use of 
any such urgency; and then, upon this 
principle being well laid within you, they 
might take the liberty of telling you your 
duty. Their fearfulness upon this point 
forms a very striking contrast to the free, 
and unembarrassed, and energetic manner, 
in which the Bible, both of the Old and 
New Testament, calls on every man who 
comes within the reach of a hearing, to 
cease from all sin, and turn him to all 
righteousness. In following its example, 
let us be fearless of all consequences. It 
may not suit the artificial processes of some 
of our systems, nor fall in with the order 
of their well-weighed and carefully arranged 
articles, to tell at the very outset of those 
obvious reformations which I am now 
pressing upon you. But sure I am, that an 
apostle would have felt no difficulty on the 
subject ; nor whatever the visible sin which 
deformed you, or whatever the visible act 
of obedience in which you were deficient, 
would he have been restrained from giving 
his immediate energy to the work of calling 
on you to abstain from the one and to do 
the other. 

The disciples of John could not have 
such a clear view of the ground of accept- 
ance before God, as an enlightened disciple 
of the apostles. Yet the want of this clear 
view did not prevent them from being right 
subjects for John's preparatory instructions. 
And what were these instructions 1 Sol- 
diers were called on to give up their vio- 
lence, and publicans their exactions, and 
rich men the confinement of their own 
wealth to their own gratification ; and will 
any man hesitate for a moment to decide 
whether those who turned away from 
the directions of the forerunner, or those 
who followed them, were in the likeliest 
state for receiving light and improvement 
from the subsequent teaching of the Sa- 
viour ? 

But there is one difference between them 
and us. The whole of Christ's teaching, 
as put down in the word of God, is already 
before us. Now what precise effect should 
this have upon the nature of an initiatory 
address to sinners? The right answer to 



this question will confirm, or it will demo 
lish the whole of our preceding argument. 
The alone ground of acceptance, is the 
righteousness of Christ imputed to all who 
believe. This truth deserves to be taken 
up, and urged immediately in the hearing 
of all who are within the reach of the 
preacher's voice. Till this truth be re- 
ceived, there should be no rest to the sin- 
ner, there is no reconciliation with God, nor 
will he attain that consummation of holi- 
ness, without which there can be no meet- 
ness for the enjoyment of heaven. But 
some are readier to receive this truth than 
others. The reforming publicans and har- 
lots of John were in a state of greater readi- 
ness to receive this truth, than either the 
Pharisees, or those publicans and harlots 
who, unmindful of John, still persisted in 
their iniquities. And who will be in greater 
readiness to receive this truth in the present 
day ? Will it be the obstinate and deter- 
minate doers of all that is sinful, and that 
too in the face of a call, that they should do 
works meet for repentance ? Or will it be 
those who, under the influence of this call, 
do what the disciples of John did before 
them, turn -them from the evil of their ma- 
nifest iniquities, and so give proof of their 
earnestness in the way of salvation ? It is 
true that, along with such a call, we might 
now urge a truth which even John could 
not. But are we to suspend the call of 
doing works meet for repentance, till this 
truth be urged and established in the mind 
of the hearer ? Surely, if God thought it 
wise to ply sinners with a call to turn them 
from the evil of their ways, before he fully 
revealed to them the evangelical ground of 
their acceptance, we may count it scriptural 
and safe to ply them with this call at the 
same time that we state to them the evan- 
gelical ground of their acceptance. 

It is true, that the statement may not be 
comprehended all at once. It may be years 
before it is listened to by the careless, before 
it is rested in by the desponding, before the 
comfort of it is at all felt or appropriated by 
the doubting and melancholy inquirer. Now 
what I contend for is, that during this in- 
terval of time, these people may and ought 
to be urged with the call of departing from 
their iniquities. This very call was brought 
to bear on the disciples of John, before the 
ground of their acceptance was fully made 
known to them ; and it might be brought to 
bear on sinners now, even though it should 
be before the ground of their acceptance be 
fully understood by them. The effect of 
this preparatory instruction in these days, 
was to fit John's disciples for the subse- 
quent revelation of Christ and his apostles. 
It is true that we are in possession of that 
doctrine which they only had the prospect 
of. But it accords with experience, that 
this doctrine might be addressed without 



310 



DUTY OF DILIGENCE IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 



effect for years to men inquiring after sal- 
.vation. The doctrine of justification by the 
righteousness of Christ, might be announced 
in all its force, and in all its simplicity, to 
men who hold out against it; and you 
would surely say of them, that the way of 
the Lord had not been prepared to their 
minds, nor his paths made straight. Now 
we read of such a preparation set agoing 
in behalf of men to whom this doctrine had 
not yet been revealed. Will this prepara- 
tion be altogether ineffectual in behalf of 
men, by whom this doctrine is not yet un- 
derstood ? Surely it is quite evident, that 
in the days of John, men who, in obedience 
to his call, were struggling with their sins, 
were in a likelier way for receiving those 
larger measures of truth, which were after- 
ward revealed, than they who, in the face 
of that call, were obstinately and presump- 
tuously retaining them. Suffer us to avail 
ourselves of the same advantage now. You, 
my brethren, who, in obedience to the calls 
that have been sounded in your hearing, are 
struggling with your sins, are in a likelier 
way for receiving those larger measures of 
truth which are now revealed, than those 
of you who feel no earnestness, and are 
making no endeavours upon the subject. 
While, therefore, I announce to you, in the 
most distinct terms, that you will not be 
saved unless you are found in the righteous- 
ness of Christ, this will not restrain me at 
the very same time from doing what John 
did. You know how his disciples were 
prepared for the baptism of the Holy Ghost, 
who guides unto all truth; and while I do 
not think that any one point of time is too 
early for offering Christ to you, in all the 
benefits of his sacrifice, in all the imputed 
merits of his perfect righteousness, in all 
the privileges which he has proclaimed and 
purchased for believers; all I contend for 
is, that neither is there any point of time too 
early for letting you know, that all sin must 
be abandoned, for calling on you to enter 
into the work of struggling with all sin im- 
mediately, for warning you, that while you 
persist in those sinful actions which you 
might give up, and would give up, were 
a temporal inducement held out to you, I 
have no evidence of your receiving benefit 
from the word of salvation that I am sound- 
ing in your ears. There is surely room for 
telling sinners more than one thing, in the 
course of the very earliest lesson that is laid 
before them. It is an exclusive deference 
to the one point, and the one principle, and 
the bringing of every thing else into a forced 
subordination upon it, which has enfeebled 
many an attempt to turn sinners to Christ 
from their iniquities. I can surely tell a man, 
that unless he is walking in a particular line, 
he will not reach the object he is aiming at; 
and I can tell him at the same time, that 
neither will he reach it, unless he have his 



eyes open, and he look upon the object. On 
these two unquestionable truths, I bid him 
both walk and look at the same time, and 
at the same time he can do both. In the 
same manner I may tell a man, that unless 
he give up stealing he shall not reach hea- 
ven; and I may also tell him, that unless 
he accept, by faith, Christ as his alone Sa- 
viour, he shall not reach heaven. On these 
two truths I found two practical directions ; 
and I must be convinced, that the doing of 
the one hinders the doing of the other, ere 
I desist from that which the first teachers 
of Christianity did before me, — proclaim 
Christ, and within the compass of the same 
breathing, call on men to do works meet 
for repentance. 

In the order of time, the practical in- 
structions of John went before the full an- 
nouncement of the doctrines of salvation. 
I do not think, however, that this order is 
authoritative upon us; but far less do I 
think that our full possession of the doc- 
trine of salvation confers any authority 
upon us for reversing the historical process 
of the New Testament. I bring all the- 
truths which the teachers of these days ad- 
dressed to the sinners among whom they 
labour, to bear immediately upon you sin- 
ners now. And while I call upon you to 
turn from the evil of your ways, I also warn 
you of the danger of putting away from you 
the offered Saviour, or refusing all your 
confidence in that name than which there 
is no other given under heaven whereby 
men can be saved. 

If by faith be meant the embracing of 
one doctrine, then I can understand how 
some might be alarmed lest an outset so 
practical should depose faith from the pre- 
cedency which belongs to it. But if by 
faith be meant a reliance upon the whole 
testimony of Scripture, then the precedency 
of faith is not at all broken in upon. If, on 
the call of " Flee from the coming wrath," 
I get you to struggle it with your more pal- 
pable iniquities, I see in that very struggle 
the operation of a faith in the divine testi- 
mony about the realities of an invisible 
world, and I have reason to bless God that 
he has wrought in you what I am sure no 
argument and no vehemence of mine could, 
without the power of his Spirit, ever have 
accomplished. Those of you who have thus 
evinced one exercise of faith, I look upon 
as more hopeful subjects for another exer- 
cise, than those of you who remain trenched 
in obstinacy and unconcern. And when I 
tell the former, that nothing will get them 
acceptance with God, but the mediation of 
Christ offered to all who come, it will be to 
them, and not to the latter, that I should 
look for an earnest desire after the offered 
Saviour. When I tell them that they affront 
God by not receiving the record which he 
gives of his Son, it will be to them and 



DUTY OF DILIGENCE IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 



311 



not to the others, that I shall look for a 
submissive and thankful acquiescence in the 
whole of his salvation ; and thus passing 
with the docility of little children from one 
lesson of the Bible to another ; these are the 
people who, working because God so bids 
them, will count that a man is not justified 
by the works of the law, because God so 
tells them; these are the people who, not 
offended by what Christ told them at the 
outset, that he who cometh unto him must 
forsake all, will evince their willingness to 
forsake all, by turning from their iniquities, 
and coming unto Christ ; these are the peo- 
ple who, while they do what they may 
with their hands, will think that while their 
heart is not directed to the love of God, they 
have done nothing ; and counting it a faith- 
ful saying, that without Christ they can do 
nothing, they will take to him as their sanc- 
tifier as well as their Saviour, and having 
received him as the Lord their righteous- 
ness, will ever repair to him and keep by 
him as the Lord their strength. 

While I urge upon you the doing of 
every obviously right thing, you will not 
conceive of me that I want you to rest in 
this doing. I trust that my introductory- 
paragraphs may convince you how much 
of this doing may be gone through, and 
yet the mighty object of the obedience of 
the willing heart might be unreached and 
unaccomplished. Not to urge the doing, lest 
you should rest, would be to deviate from 
scriptural example. And again, to urge the 
doing, and leave you to rest, would be also 
to deviate from scriptural example. John 
the Baptist urged the doing of many things, 
and his faithful disciples set themselves to 
the performance of what he bade them 
do. They entered immediately on the field 
of active and diligent service. But did they 
stop short? No; out of the very preach- 
ing of their master did they obtain a cau- 
tion against resting ; and the same submis- 
sive deference to his authority, in virtue of 
which they were set a working, led them 
also, along with their working at the things 
which he set them to, to look forward to 
greater things than these. He told them 
expressly, that all his preaching was as no- 
thing to the preaching of one who was to 
come after him. They were diligent with 
present things, but be assured that they 
combined with this diligence the attitude 
of looking forward to greater things. Is 
this the attitude of men who place their 
repose and their dependance upon the per- 
formances on hand 1 Was it not the atti- 
tude of men walking in the way revealed 
by a messenger from heaven, to the object 
which this messenger pointed out to them ? 
I call on you to commence at this moment 
an immediate struggle with all sin, and an 
immediate striving after all righteousness ; 
but I would not be completing even the 



lesson of John, and far less would I be 
bringing forward the counsel of God, as 
made known to us in his subsequent reve- 
lation, were I to say any thing which led 
you to stop short at those visible reforma- 
tions, which formed the great burden of 
John's practical addresses to his country- 
men ; and therefore along with your do- 
ing, and most diligently doing all that is 
within your reach, I call on you to pray, 
and most fervently and faithfully to pray 
for that larger baptism of the Holy Ghost, 
by which your hearts may be cleansed 
from all their corruptions, and you be en- 
abled to render unto God all the purity of a 
spiritual obedience. 

I cannot expatiate within the limits of 
this short address on the texts both of the 
Old and New Testament, which serve to 
establish, that the right attitude of a return- 
ing sinner is what I have sometimes called 
in your hearing, the compound attitude of 
service and expectation. But I shall re- 
peat a few of these texts, that they may 
suggest what you have been in the habit 
of hearing from me upon this subject. 
" And Samuel spake to all the house of Is- 
rael, saying, if ye do return unto the Lord 
with all your hearts, then put away the 
strange gods and Ashtaroth from among 
you, and prepare your hearts unto the 
Lord, and serve him only, and he will de- 
liver you out of the hand of the Philistines. 
Then the children of Israel did put away 
Baalim and Ashtaroth, and served the Lord 
alone." " They will not frame their doings 
to turn unto the Lord." " Thus saith the 
Lord, keep ye judgment and do justice, for 
my salvation is near to come, and my righ- 
teousness to be revealed. Blessed is the 
man that doeth this, and the son of man 
that layeth hold on it, that keepeth the 
Sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his 
hand from doing evil." " Deal thy bread 
to the hungry, and bring the poor that are 
cast out into thy house. When thou seest 
the naked, cover him, and hide not thy- 
self from thine own flesh. Then shall thy 
light break forth as the morning, and thine 
health shall spring forth speedily, and thy 
righteousness shall go before thee; the 
glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward." 
" He that hath my commandments and 
keepeth them, he it is that loveth me, and 
he that loveth me shall be loved of my Fa- 
ther, and I will love him, and will manifest 
myself unto him." " For whosoever hath, 
to him shall be given, and he shall have 
more abundance ; but whosoever hath not, 
from him shall be taken away even that he 
hath." " WTiosoever, therefore, shall breaK 
one of these least commandments, and shall 
teach men so, he shall be called the least in 
the kingdom of heaven; but whosoever 
shall do and teach them, the same shall be 
called great in the kingdom of heaven." 



312 



DUTY OF DILIGENCE IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 



"And we are witnesses of these things; 
and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God 
hath given to them that obey him." "Trust 
in the Lord and do good." 

But danger presses on us in every direc- 
tion ; and in the work of dividing the word 
of truth, many, and very many, are the ob- 
stacles which lie in the way of our doing 
it rightly. When, a minister gives his 
strength to one particular lesson, it often 
carries in it the appearance of his neglect- 
ing all the rest, and throwing into the 
back ground other lessons of equal im- 
portance. It might require the ministra- 
tions of many years to do away this ap- 
pearance. Sure I am, that I despair of 
doing it away within the limits of this 
short address to any but yourselves. You 
know all that I have urged upon the ground 
of your acceptance with God; upon the 
freeness of that offer which is by Christ 
Jesus ; upon the honest invitations which 
every where abound in the Gospel, that all 
who will, may take hold of it ; upon the 
necessity of being found by God not in 
your own righteousness, but in the righ- 
teousness which is of Christ; upon the 
helplessness of man, and how all the strag- 
glings of his own unaided strength can 
never carry him to the length of a spiritual 
obedience ; upon the darkness and enmity 
of his mind about the things of God, and 
how this can never be dissolved, till he 
who by nature stands afar off is brought 
near by the blood of the atonement, and he 
receives that repentance and that remis- 
sion of sins, which Christ is exalted a 
Prince and a Saviour to dispense to all who 
believe in him. These are offers and doc- 
trines which might be addressed, and ought 
to be addressed immediately to all. But the 
call I have been urging upon you through 
the whole of this pamphlet, of " Cease ye 
from your manifest transgressions," should 
be addressed along with them. 

Now, here lies the difficulty with many a 
sincere lover of the truth as it is in Jesus. 
He feels a backwardness in urging this call, 
lest it should some how or other impair 
the freeness of the offer, or encroach upon 
the singleness of that which is stated to be 
our alone meritorious ground of acceptance 
before God. In reply to this, let it be well 
observed, that though the offer be at all 
times free, it is not at all times listened to ; 
and though the only ground of acceptance 
be that righteousness of Christ which is 
unto all them and upon all them that be- 
lieve, yet some are in likelier circumstances 
for being brought to this belief than others. 
There is one class of hearers who are in a 
greater state of readiness for being impress- 
ed by the Gospel than another, — and I fear 
that all the use has not been made of this 
principle, which Scripture and experience 
warrant us to do. Every attempt to work 



man into a readiness for receiving the offer 
has been discouraged, as if it carried in it a 
reflection against the freeness of the offer 
itself. The obedient disciples of John were 
more prepared for the doctrines of grace, 
than the careless hearers of this prophet ; 
but their obedience did not confer any 
claim of merit upon them, it only made 
them more disposed to receive the good 
tidings of that salvation which was alto- 
gether of grace. A despiser of ordinances 
is put into a likelier situation for receiving 
the free offer of the Gospel, by being pre- 
vailed upon to attend a church where this 
offer is urged upon his acceptance. His 
attendance does not impair the freeness of 
the offer. Yet where is the man so warp- 
ed by a misleading speculation, as to deny 
that the doing of this previous to his union 
with Christ and preparatory to that union, 
may be the very mean of the free offer be- 
ing received. Again, it is the lesson both of 
experience and of the Bible, that the young 
are likelier subjects for religious instruc- 
tion than the old. The free offer may and 
ought to be addressed to both these classes ; 
but generally speaking, it is in point of 
fact more productive "of good when ad- 
dressed to the first class than the second. 
And w r e do not say that youth confers any 
meritorious title to salvation, nor do we 
make any reflection on the freeness of the 
offer, when we urge it upon the young, 
lest they should get old, and it have less 
chance of being laid before them with ac- 
ceptance. We make no reflection upon the 
offer as to its character of freeness, but we 
proceed upon the obvious fact, that, free as 
it is, it is not so readily listened to or laid 
hold of by the second class of hearers as 
by the first. And, lastly, when addressing 
sinners now, all of them might and ought 
to be plied with the free offer of salvation 
at the very outset. But if it be true, that 
those of them who wilfully persist in those 
misdoings, which they could give up on 
the inducement of a temporal reward, will 
not, in point of fact, be so impressed by the 
offer, or be so disposed to accept of it, as 
those who (on the call of—" Flee from the 
coming wrath ;") and on being told, that, 
unless they repent they shall perish ; and 
on being made to know, what our Saviour 
made inquirers know at the very starting 
point of their progress as his disciples, that 
he who follow T eth after him must forsake 
all,) have begun to break off their sins, and 
to put the evil of their doings away from 
them : then we are not stripping the offer 
of its attribute of perfect freeness, but we 
are only doing what God in his wisdom 
did two thousand years ago ; we are, under 
Him, preparing souls for the reception of 
this offer, when along with the business of 
proposing it, which we cannot do too early, 
we bring the urgency of an immediate call 



DUTY OF DILIGENCE IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 



313 



to bear on the children of iniquity, that 
they should cease to do evil, and learn to 
do well. 

The publicans and harlots entered into 
the kingdom of God before the Pharisees, 
and yet the latter were free from the out- 
ward transgressions of the former. Now, 
the fear which restrains many from lifting 
the immediate call of — " Cease ye from your 
transgressions," is, lest it should put those 
who obey the call into the state of Pharisees ; 
and there is a secret, though not avowed, 
impression in their minds, that it were bet- 
ter for their hearers to remain in the state 
of publicans and harlots, and in this state to 
have the offer of Christ and all his benefits 
set before them. But mark well, that it 
was not the publicans and harlots who per- 
sisted in their iniquities, but they who 
counted John to be a prophet, and in obe- 
dience to his call, were putting their iniqui- 
ties away from them, who had the advan- 
tage of the Pharisees. None will surely 
say, that those of them who continued as 
they were, were put into a state of prepara- 
tion for the Saviour by the preaching of 
John. Some will be afraid to say, that 
those of them who gave up their iniquities 
at the bidding of John, were put into a 
state of preparation, lest it should encourage 
a pharisaical confidence in our own doings. 
But mark the distinction between these and 
the Pharisees : The Pharisees might be as 
free as the reforming publicans and harlots, 
of those visible transgressions which cha- 
racterized them; but on this they rested 
their confidence, and put the offered Sa- 
viour away from them. The publicans and 
harlots, so far from resting their confidence 
on the degree of reformation which they 
had accomplished, were prompted to this 
reformation by the hope of the coming Sa- 
viour. They connected with all their do- 
ings the expectation of greater things. 
They waited for the kingdom of God that 
was at hand ; and the preaching of John, 
under the influence of which they had put 
away from them many of their misdeeds, 
could never lead them to stop short at this 
degree of amendment, when the very same 
John told them of one who was to come af- 
ter him, in comparison of whom he and all 
his sermons were as nothing. The Saviour 
did come, and he said of those publicans 
and harlots who believed and repented at 
the preaching of John, that they entered 
the kingdom of heaven before the Phari- 
sees. They had not earned that kingdom 
by their doings, but they were in a fitter 
and readier state for receiving the tidings 
of it. The gospel came to them on the 
footing of a free and unmerited offer ; and 
on this footing it should be proposed to all. 
But it is not on this footing that it will be 
accepted by all. Not by men who, free 
from many glaring and visible iniquities, 



rest on the decency of their own character ; 
—not by men who, deformed by these ini- 
quities, still wilfully and obstinately persist 
in them ; but by men who, earnest in their 
inquiries after salvation, and who, made to 
know, as they ought to be at the very out- 
set of their inquiries, that it is a salvation 
from sin as well as from punishment, have 
given up the practice of their outward ini- 
quities, as the first fruit and evidence of 
their earnestness. 

Let me, therefore, in addition to the les- 
son I have already urged upon you, warn 
you against a pharisaical confidence in 
your own doings. While, on the one hand, 
I tell you that none are truly seeking who 
have not begun to do ; I, on the other hand, 
tell you, that none have truly found who 
have not taken up with Christ as the end of 
the law for righteousness. Let Jesus Christ, 
the same to-day, yesterday, and for ever, 
be the end of your conversation. Never 
take rest till you have found it in him. You 
never will have a well-grounded comfort in 
your intercourse with God, till you have 
learned the way of going to the throne of his 
grace in fellowship with Christ as your ap- 
pointed Mediator ; — you never will rejoice 
in hope of the coming glory, till your peace 
be made with God through Jesus Christ 
our Lord ; you never will be sure of par- 
don, till you rest in the forgiveness of your 
sins as coming to you through the redemp- 
tion which is in his blood. And what is 
more, addressing you as a people who have 
received a practical impulse to the obe- 
dience of the commandments, never forget, 
that, while the reformation of your first and 
earliest stages in the christian life went no 
farther than to the amendment of your more 
obvious and visible deficiencies, this refor- 
mation, to be completed, must bring the 
soul and spirit, as well as the body, under 
a subserviency to the glory of God ; and it 
never can be completed but by the shed- 
ding abroad of that spirit which is daily 
poured on the daily prayers of believers : 
and I call upon you always to look up to 
God through the channel of Christ's ap- 
pointed mediatorship, that you may receive 
through this same channel a constant and 
ever increasing supply of the washing of 
regeneration and renewing of the Holy 
Ghost. 

I call upon you to be up and doing ; but 
I call upon you with the very same breath, 
not to rest satisfied with any dark, or con- 
fused notions about your way of acceptance 
with God ; and let it be your earnest and 
never-ceasing object to be found in that 
way. While you have the commandments 
and keep them, look at the same time for 
the promised manifestations. To be indif- 
ferent whether you have a clear understand- 
ing of the righteousness of Christ, is the 
same as thinking it not worth your while 



314 



DUTY OF DILIGENCE IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 



to inquire into that which God thought it 
worth his while to give up his Son unto the 
death that he might accomplish. It is to 
affront God, by letting him speak while you 
refuse to listen or attend to him. Have a 
care, lest it be an insulting sentiment on 
your part, as to the worth of your polluted 
services, and that, sinful as they are, and 
defective as they are, they are good enough 
for God. Lean not on such a bruised reed ; 
but let Christ, in all the perfection of that 
righteousness, which is unto all them and 
upon all them that believe, be the alone 
rock of your confidence. Your feet will 
never get on a sure place till they be estab- 
lished on that foundation than which there 
is no other ; and to delay a single moment 
in your attempts to reach it, and to find 
rest upon it, after it is so broadly announced 
to you, is to incur the aggravated guilt of 
those who neglect the great salvation, and 
who make God a liar, by suspending their 
belief of that record which he hath given of 
bis Son, — "And this is the record that God 
hath given us eternal life, and this life is in 
his Son." 

Again I call upon you to be up and doing ; 
and I call upon you to accept of Christ as 
your alone Saviour : but 1 call upon you, 
at the same time, to look to the whole ex- 
tent of his salvation. " You hath he quick- 
ened, having forgiven you all trespasses." 
There is the forgiveness of all that has been 
dead, and sinful, and alienated within you : 
but there is also a quickening, and a reform- 
ing, and a putting within you a near and a 
lively sense of God, so as that you may 
henceforth serve him with newness of heart, 
and walk before him in all newness of life 
and of conversation. Your hearts will be 
enlarged, so as that you may run the way 
of all the commandments. O, how it puts 
to flight all pharisaical confidence in the 
present exercises of obedience, when one 
casts an enlightened eye over the whole 
extent of the Christian race, and thinks of 
the mighty extent of those attainments 
which were exemplified by the disciples of 
the New Testament ! The service which I 
now yield, and is perhaps offered up in the 
spirit of bondage, must be offered up in the 
spirit of adoption. It must be the obe- 
dience of a child, who yields the willing 
homage of his affections to his reconciled 
father. It must be the obedience of the 
heart : and O how far is a slavish perform- 
ance of the bidden task, from the consent 
of the inner man to the law of that God 
whom he delights to honour ! This love to 
him, and delight in him, occupy the fore- 
most place in the list of the bidden require- 
ments. If I love the creature more than 
the Creator, I trample on the authority of 
the first and greatest of the commandments; 
and what an imposing exhibition of so- 
briety, and justice, and almsgiving, and reli- 



gious decency, may be presented in the 
character and doings of him whose conver- 
sation is not in heaven, who minds earthly 
things, who loves his wealth more than 
God, who likes his ease and comfort on this 
side of time more than all his prospects on 
the other side of it, and who, therefore, 
though he may never have looked upon 
himself to be any thing else than a fair 
Christian, is looked upon by every spiritual 
being as a rebel to his God, with the prin- 
ciple of rebellion firmly seated in his most 
vital part, even in his heart, turned in cold- 
ness and alienation away from him. 

But if God be looked upon by you as a 
Father with whom you are reconciled 
through the blood of sprinkling, it will not 
be so with you. Now, this is what he calls 
you to do. He gives you a warrant to 
choose him as your God. He offers him- 
self to your acceptance, and beseeches all 
to whom the word of salvation is sent, to 
be reconciled to Him. It is indeed a won- 
derful change in the state of a heart, when, 
giving up its coldness and indifference to 
God, (and I call upon every careless and 
unawakened man to tell me, upon his ho- 
nesty, whether this be not the actual state 
of his heart,) it surrenders itself to him with 
the warm and the willing tribute of all its 
affections. Now, there is not one power, 
within the compass of nature, that can 
bring about this change. It does not lie 
with man to give up the radical iniquity of 
an alienated heart ; the Ethiopian may as 
soon change his skin, and the leopard his 
spots. But what cannot be done by him, 
is done to him, when he accepts of the Gos- 
pel. The promises of Christ are abundant- 
ly peformed upon all who trust in him. 
Through him is the dispensation of forgive- 
ness, and with him is the dispensation of 
the all-powerful and all-subduing Spirit. 
While, then, with the very first mention of 
his name, I call on you to cease your hand 
from doing evil, surely there is nothing in 
the call that can lead you to stop at any 
one point of obedience, when I, at the same 
time, tell you of the mighty change that 
must be accomplished, ere you are meet 
for the inheritance of the saints. You must 
be made the workmanship of God ; you 
must be born again ; you must be made to 
feel your dependance on the power of the 
renewing Spirit; and that power must 
come down upon you, and keep by you, 
and by his ever-needed supplies must form 
the habitual answer to your habitual and 
believing prayers. 

I have now got upon ground on which 
many will refuse to go along with me. I 
can get their testimony to the spectacle of 
a reforming people, putting the visible ini- 
quities of stealing, and lying, and evil 
speaking, and drunkenness, away from 
them ; but from the moment we come to 



DUTY OF DILIGENCE IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 



315 



the only principle which confers any value 
on these visible expressions, even the wil- 
ling homage of the heart to God, and to his 
law in ail its spirituality and extent ; and 
from the moment that we come to the only 
expedient by which such a principle c»n 
ever obtain an establishment within us, 
(and we challenge them to attempt the 
establishment of this principle in any other 
w T ay,) even the operation of that spirit 
which is given to those who accept of 
Christ as he is laid before us in the Gospel ; 
then, and at that moment, are we looked 
upon as having entered within the borders 
of fanaticism ; and, while they lavish their 
superficial admiration on the flowers of 
virtue, do they refuse the patience of their 
attention to the root from which they 
spring, or to the nourishment which main- 
tains them. 

And here I cannot but record the effect 
of an actual though undesigned experiment, 
which I prosecuted for upwards of twelve 
years among you. For the greater part of 
that time, T could expatiate on the meanness 
of dishonesty, on the villainy of falsehood, 
on the despicable arts of calumny, — in a 
word, upon all those deformities of charac- 
ter, which awaken the natural indignation 
of the human heart against the pests and 
the disturbers of human society. Now 
could I, upon the strength of these warm 
expostulations, have got the thief to give 
up his stealing, and the evil speaker his 
censoriousness, and the liar his deviations 
from truth, 1 should have felt all the repose 
of one who had gotten his ultimate object. 
It never occurred to me that all this might 
have been done, and yet every soul of every 
hearer have remained in full alienation from 
God ; and that even could I have established 
in the bosom of one who stole, such a prin- 
ciple of abhorrence at the meanness of dis- 
honesty, that he was prevailed upon to steal 
no more, he might still have retained a heart 
as completely unturned to God, and as to- 
tally unpossessed by a principle of love to 
Him, as before. In a word, though I might 
have made him a more upright and honour- 
able man, I might have left him as destitute 
of the essence of religious principle as ever. 
But the interesting fact is, that during the 
whole of that period in which I made no 
attempt against the natural enmity of the 
mind to God, while I was inattentive to the 
way in which this enmity is dissolved, even 
by the free offer on the one hand, and the 
believing acceptance on the other, of the 
gospel salvation; while Christ, through 
whose blood the sinner, who by nature 
stands afar off, is brought near to the hea- 
venly Lawgiver whom he has offended, was 
scarcely ever spoken of, or spoken of in 
such a way, as stripped him of all the im- 
portance of his character and his offices, 
even at this time I certainly did press the 



reformations of honour, and truth, and in- 
tegrity among my people; but I never once 
heard of any such reformations having been 
effected among them. If there was any thing 
at all brought about in this way, it was more 
than ever I got any account of, I am not 
sensible, that all the vehemence with which 
I urged the virtues and the proprieties of 
social life, had the weight of a feather on 
the moral habits of my parishioners. And 
it was not till I got impressed by the utter 
alienation of the heart in all its desires and 
affections from God ; it was not till recon- 
ciliation to Him became the distinct and the 
prominent object of my ministerial exer- 
tions ; it was not till I took the scriptural 
way of laying the method of reconciliation 
before them ; it was not till the free offer 
of forgiveness through the blood of Christ 
was urged upon their acceptance, and the 
Holy Spirit given through the channel of 
Christ's mediatorship to all who ask him, 
was set before them as the unceasing object 
of their dependance and their p#yersj^ 
was not, in one word, till the contemplati^B 
of my people were turned to these great 
and essential elements in the business of a 
soul providing for its interest with God and 
the concerns of its eternity, that I ever heard 
of any of those subordinate reformations 
which 1 aforetime made the earnest and the 
zealous, but I am afraid at the same time, 
the ultimate object of my earlier ministra- 
tions. Ye servants, whose scrupulous fidel- 
ity has now attracted the notice, and drawn 
forth in my hearing a delightful testimony 
from your masters, what mischief you would 
have done, had your zeal for doctrines and 
sacraments been accompanied by the sloth 
and the remissness, and what, in the pre- 
vailing tone of moral relaxation, is counted 
the allowable purloining of your earlier 
days ! But a sense of your heavenly Mas- 
ter's eye has brought another influence to 
bear upon you; and while you are thus 
striving to adorn the doctrine of God your 
Saviour in all things, you may, poor as you 
are, reclaim the great ones of the land to 
the acknowledgment of the faith. You have 
at least taught me, that to preach Christ is 
the only effective way of preaching morality 
in all its branches ; and out of your humble 
cottages have I gathered a lesson, which-I 
pray God I may be enabled to carry with 
all its simplicity into a wider theatre, and to 
bring with all the power of its subduing 
efficacy upon the vices of a more crowded 
population. 

And here it gives me pleasure to observe, 
that, earnest as I have been for a plain and 
practical outset, the very first obedience of 
John's disciples was connected with a be- 
lief in the announcement of a common Sa- 
viour. This principle was present with 
them, and had its influence on the earliest 
movements of their repentance. Faith in 



316 



DUTY OF DILIGENCE IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 



Christ had at that time but an obscure dawn- 
ing in their minds ; but they did not wait for 
its full and its finished splendour, till they 
should begin the work of keeping the com- 
mandments. To this infant faith there cor- 
responded a certain degree of obedience, 
and this obedience grew more enlightened, 
more spiritual, more allied with the purity 
of the hearty and the movements of the 
inner man, just as faith obtained its brighter 
and larger accessions in the course of the 
subsequent revelations. The disciple of 
John keeping himself free from extortion 
and adultery, was a very different man from 
the Pharisee, who was neither an extortioner 
nor an adulterer. The mind of the Phari- 
see rested On his present performances ; the 
mind of the disciple was filled with the ex- 
pectation of a higher Teacher, and he look- 
ed forward to him, and was in the attitude 
of readiness to listen and believe, and obey. 
Many of them were transferred from the 
forerunner to the Saviour, and they com- 

•Ied #ith him during his abode in the 
Id, and were found with one accord in 
one place on the day of Pentecost, and 
shared in the influences of that Comforter, 
whom Christ promised to send down upon 
his disciples on earth, from the place to 
which he had ascended in heaven ; and thus 
it is that the same men who started with 
the preaching of John at the work of put- 
ting their obvious and palpable transgres- 
sions away from them, were met afterwards 
at the distance of years living the life of 
faith in Christ, and growing in meetness 
for a spiritual inheritance, by growing in 
all the graces and accomplishments of a 
spiritual obedience. There was a faith in 
Christ, which presided over the very first 
steps of their practical career; but it is wor- 
thy of being remarked, that they did not 
wait in indolence till this faith should re- 
ceive its further augmentations. Upon this 
faith, humble as it was at its commence- 
ment, their teacher exacted a corresponding 
obedience, and this obedience, so far from 
being suspended till what was lacking in 
their faith should be perfected, was the very 
path which conducted them to larger mani- 
festations. Now, is not faith a growing prin- 
ciple at this hour ? Is not the faith of an 
incipient Christian different in its strength, 
and in the largeness of its contemplations, 
from the faith of him who, by reason of 
use, has had his senses well exercised to dis- 
cern both the good and the evil ? I am wil- 
ling to concede it, for it accords with all 
my experience on the subject, that some an- 
ticipation, however faint, of the benefit to 
be derived from an offered Saviour ; some 
apprehension, however indistinct, of the 
mercy of God in Christ Jesus : some hope, 
inspired by the peculiar doctrines of the 
Gospel, and which nothing but the preach- 
ing of that Gospel in all its peculiarity will 



ever awaken in the mind, — that these are 
the principles which preside over the very 
first movements of a sinner, casting away 
from him his transgressions, and returning 
unto God. 

But let us not throw any impediment in' 
the way of these first movements. Let us 
have a practical outset. Let us not be afraid 
of giving an immediate character of exer- 
tion to the very infancy of a Christian's 
career. To wait in slavish adherence to 
system, till the principle of faith be depo- 
sited with all the tenacity of a settled as- 
surance in the mind, or the brilliancy of a 
finished light be thrown around it, would 
be to act in the face of scriptural example. 
Let the gospel be preached in all its free- 
ness at the very outset ; but let us never 
forget, that to e\ r ery varying degree of faith 
in the mind of the hearer there goes an 
obedience along with it; that to forsake the 
evil of his ways can never be pressed too 
early upon his observance ; that this, 
and every subsequent degree of obe- 
dience, is the prescribed path to clearer 
manifestations ;* and that, to attempt the 
establishment of a perfect faith by the single 
work of expounding the truth, is to strike 
out a spark of our own kindling — it is to 
do the thing in our own way — it is to 
throw aside the use of scriptural expedients, 
and to substitute the mere possession of a 
dogma, for that principle which, growing pro- 
gressively within us, animates and sustains 
the whole course of a humble, and diligent, 
and assiduous, and painstaking Christian. 

Whence the fact, that the deriders and 
the enemies of evangelical truth set them- 
selves forward as the exclusive advocates 
of morality? It is because many of its 
friends have not ventured to show so bold 
and so immediate a front on this subject as 
they ought to have done. They are posi- 
tively afraid of placing morality on the 
fore-ground of their speculations. They do 
not like it to be so prominently brought for- 
ward at the commencement of their in- 
structions. They have it, ay, and in a 
purer and holier form than its more osten- 
tatious advocates; but they, have thrown 
a doctrinal barrier around it, which hides 
it from the general observation. Would it 
not be better to drag it from this conceal- 
ment — to bring it out to more immediate 
view — to place it in large and visible cha- 
racters on the very threshold of our sub- 
ject ; and if our Saviour told his country- 
men, at the very outset of their disciple- 
ship, that they who followed after him must 
forsake all, is there any thing to prevent us 
from battling it at the very outset of our 
ministrations, with all that is glaringly and 
obviously wrong ? Much should be done to 
chase away the very general delusion which 



* John, xiv. 21, Acts, v. 32. 



DUTY OF DILIGENCE IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 



317 



exists among the people of this country, 
that the preachers of faith are not the 
preachers of morality. If there be any 
thing in the arrangements of a favourite 
system which are at all calculated to foster 
this delusion, these arrangements should 
just be broke in upon. Obedience should 
be written upon every signal ; and depar- 
ture from all iniquity, should be made to 
float, in a bright and legible inscription, 
upon all our standards. 

I call on you, my brethren, to abound in 
those good deeds, by which, if done in the 
body, Christ will be magnified in your bo- 
dies. I call on you for a prompt vindica- 
tion of the truth as it is in Jesus, by your 
example and your lives. Let me hear of your 
being the most equitable masters, and the 
most faithful servants, and the most up- 
right members of society, , and the most 
watchful parents, and the most dutiful chil- 
dren. Never forget, that the object of the 
Saviour is to redeem you from all iniquity, 
and that every act of wilful indulgence, in 
any one species of iniquity, is a refusal to 
go along with him. Do maintain to the eye 
of by-standers the conspicuous front of a 
reforming, and conscientious, and ever-do- 
ing people. Meet the charge of those who 
are strangers to the power of the truth, by 
the noblest of all refutations — by the graces 
and accomplishments of a life given in 
faithful and entire dedication to the will of 
the Saviour. Let the remembrance of what 
he gave for you, ever stir you up to the 
sense of what you should give him back 
again ; and while others talk of good works, 
in such a way as to depose Christ from his 
pre-eminence, do you perform these good 
works through Christ, by the power of his 
grace working in you mightily. 

And think not that you have attained, or 
are already perfect. Have your eye ever 
directed to the perfect righteousness of 
Christ, as the only ground of your accep- 
tance with God, and as the only exam- 
ple you should never cease to aspire after. 
Rest not in any one measure of attainment. 
Think not that you should stop short till you 
are righteous, even as he is glorious. Take 
unto you the whole armour of God, that 
you be fitted for the contest, and prove that 
you are indeed born again by the anointing 
which you have received, being an anoint- 
ing which remaineth. May the very God 
of peace sanctify you wholly. May he shed 
abroad his love in your hearts. And may 
the Spirit which I call on you to pray for, 
in the faith of Him who is entrusted with 
the dispensation of it, impel you to all dili- 
gence, that you may be found of Him, at his 
coming, without spot, and blameless. 

I shall conclude this very hurried and im- 
perfect Address, with the last words of my 
last sermon to you. 

" It is not enough that you receive Christ 



for the single object of forgiveness, or as a 
Priest who has wrought out an atonement 
for you ; for Christ offers himself in more 
capacities than this one, and you do not 
receive him truly, unless you receive him 
just as he offers himself. Again it is not 
enough that you receive Christ only as a 
Priest and a Prophet ; for all that he teaches 
will be to you a dead letter, unless you are 
qualified to understand and to obey it ; and 
if you think that you are qualified by na- 
ture, you in fact, refuse his teaching, at the 
very time that you profess him to be your 
teacher, for he says, ' without me ye can 
do nothing.' You must receive him for 
strength, as well as for forgiveness and direc- 
tion, or, in other words, you must submit 
to him as your King, not merely to rule 
over you by his law, but to rule in you by 
his Spirit. You must live in constant de- 
pendance on the influences of his grace, 
and if you do so, you never will stop short 
at any one point of obedience ; but, know- 
ing that the grace of God is all-powerful, 
you will suffer no difficulties to stop your 
progress ; you will suffer no paltry limit of 
what unaided human nature can do, to 
bound your ambition after the glories of a 
purer and a better character than an earth- 
ly principle can accomplish ; you will enter 
a career, of which you at this moment see 
not the end ; you will try an ascent, of 
which the lofty eminence is hid in the 
darkness of futurity; the chilling sentiment, 
that no higher obedience is expected of me 
than what I can yield, will have no influence 
upon you ; for the mighty stretch of attain- 
ment that you look forward to, is not what 
I can do, but what Christ can do in me ; 
and, with the all-subduing instrument of 
his grace to help you through every diffi- 
culty, and to carry you in triumph over 
every opposition, you will press forward 
conquering and to conquer ; and, while the 
world knoweth not the power of those 
great and animating hopes which sustain 
you, you will be making daily progress in 
a field of discipline and acquirement which 
they have never entered ; and in patience 
and forgiveness, and gentleness and cha- 
rity, and the love of God and the love of 
your neighbour, which is like unto the love 
of God, you will prove that a work of grace 
is going on in your hearts, even that work 
by which the image you lost at the fall is 
repaired and brought back again, the em- 
pire of sin within you is overthrown, 
the subjection of your hearts to what is 
visible and earthly is exchanged for the 
power of the unseen world over its every 
affection, and you be filled with such a faith, 
and such a love, and such a superiority to 
perishable things, as will shed a glory over 
the whole of your 'daily walk, and give to 
every one of your doings the high charac- 
ter of a candidate for eternity. 



318 



DUTY OF DILIGENCE IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 



" Christ is offered to all of you for for- 
giveness. The man who takes him for this 
single object must be looking at him with 
an eye half shut upon the revelation he 
makes of himself. Look at him with an open 
and a steadfast eye, and then I will call 
you a true believer ; and sure I am, that if 
you do so, you cannot avoid seeing him in 
the earnestness of his desire that you 
should give up all sin, and enter from this 
moment into all obedience. True, and 
most true, my brethren, that faith will 
save you ; but it must be a whole faith 
in a whole Bible. True, and most true, 
that they who keep the commandments 
of Jesus shall enter into life ; but you 
are not to shrink from any one of these 
commandments, or to say because they 
are so much above the power of human- 
ity, that you must give up the task of 
attempting them. True, and most true, 
that he who trusteth to his obedience as a 
saviour, is shifting his confidence from the 
alone foundation it can rest upon. Christ 
is your Saviour ; and when I call upon you 
to rejoice in that reconciliation which is 
through him, I call upon you not to leave 
him for a single moment, when you engage 
in the work of doing those things which if 
left undone, will exclude us from the king- 
dom of heaven. Take him along with you 
into all your services. Let the sentiment 
ever be upon you, , that what I am now 
doing I may do jn my own strength to the 
satisfaction of man, but I must have the 
power of Christ resting upon the perform- 
ance, if I wish to do it in the way that is 
acceptable to God. Let this be your habi- 
tual sentiment, and then the supposed op- 
position between faith and works vanishes 
into nothing. The life of a believer is made 
up of good works ; and faith is the ani- 
mating and the power-working principle 
of every one of them. The spirit of Christ 
actuates and sustains the whole course of 
your obedience. You walk not away from 
him, but in the language of the text, you 
£ walk in him,' (Col. ii. 6.) and as there is 
not one of your doings in which he does 
not feel a concern, and prescribe a duty 
for you, so there is not one of them in 
which his grace is not in readiness to put 
the right principle into your heart, and to 
bring it out into your conduct, and to make 
your walk accord with your profession, so 
as to let the world see upon you without, 
the power and the efficacy of the sentiment 
within ; and thus, while Christ has the 
whole merit of your forgiveness, he has the 
whole merit of your sanctification also, and 
the humtje and deeply-felt consciousness 
of ' nevertheless not me, but the grace of 
God that is in me,' restores to Jesus Christ 



all the credit and all the glory which belong 
to him, by making him your only, and your 
perfect, and your entire, and your altoge- 
ther Saviour. 

" Choose him, then, my brethren, choose 
him as the Captain of your salvation. Let 
him enter into your hearts by faith, and let 
him dwell continually there. Cultivate a 
daily intercourse and a growing acquaint- 
ance with him. O, you are in safe com- 
pany, indeed, when your fellowship is with 
him ! The shield of his protecting medi- 
atorship is ever between you and the jus- 
tice of God ; and out of his fullness there 
goeth a constant stream, to nourish, and to 
animate, and to strengthen every believer. 
Why should the shifting of human instru- 
ments so oppress and so discourage you, 
when he is your willing friend ; when he 
is ever present, and is at all times in readi- 
ness ; when he, the same to-day, yesterday, 
and for ever, is to be met with in every 
place; and while his disciples here, giving 
way to the power of sight, are sorrowful, 
and in great heaviness, because they are to 
move at a distance from one another, he, 
my brethren, he has his eye upon all neigh- 
bourhoods and all countries, and will at 
length gather his disciples into one eternal 
family. With such a Master, let us quit 
ourselves like men. With the magnifi- 
cence of eternity before us, let time, with 
its fluctuations, dwindle into its own little- 
ness. If God is pleased to spare me, I trust 
I shall often meet with you in person, even 
on this side of the grave ; but if not, let us 
often meet in prayer at the mercy-seat of 
God. While we occupy different places 
on earth, let our mutual intercessions for 
each other go to one place in heaven. Let 
the Saviour put our supplications into one 
censer ; and be assured, my brethren, that 
after the dear and the much-loved scenery 
of this peaceful vale has disappeared from 
my eye, the people who live in it shall re- 
tain a warm and an ever-during place in 
my memory; — and this mortal body must 
be stretched on the bed of death, ere the 
heart which now animates it can resign its 
exercise of longing after you, and praying 
for you, that you may so receive Christ 
Jesus, and so walk in him, and so hold fast 
the things you have gotten, and so prove 
that the labour I have nad among you has 
not been in vain; that when the sound of 
the last trumpet awakens us, these eyes, 
which are now bathed in tears, may open 
upon a scene of eternal blessedness, and 
we, my brethren, whom the providence of 
God has withdrawn for a little while from 
one another, may on that day be found side 
by side at the right hand of the everlasting 
throne." 



(319) 



APPENDIX. 



Since the present edition of this work was put- 
ting to press, I have seen a review of it by the 
Christian Instructor, and the following are the im- 
mediate observations which the perusal of this re- 
view has suggested. 

I meant no attack on any body of clergy, and I 
have made no attack upon them. The people whom 
I addressed were the main object on which my 
attention rested ; and any tiling I have said in the 
style of animadversion, was chiefly, if not exclu- 
sively, with a reference to that perverseness which 
I think I have witnessed in the conceptions and 
habits of private Christians. 

I have alluded, no doubt, to a method of treat- 
ment on the part of some of the teachers of Chris- 
tianity, and which I believe to be both inefficient 
and unscriptural. But have I at all asserted the 
extent to which this method prevails ? Have I ven- 
tured to fasten an imputation upon any marked or 
general body of Christian ministers ? It was no 
object of mine to set forth or to signalize my own 
peculiarity in this matter; and if I rightly under- 
stand who the men are whom the reviewer has in 
his eye when he speaks of the evangelical clergy, 
then does he represent me as dealing out my cen- 
sures against those whom I honestly believe to be 
the instrumental cause of nearly all the vital and 
substantial Christianity in the land. 

Again, is it not possible for a man to have an 
awakened and tender sense of the sinfulness of one 
sin, and to have a very slender and inadequate 
sense of the sinfulness of another 7 Might not the 
first circumstance beget in his mind an honest and 
a general desire to be delivered from sin ; and might 
not the second circumstance account for the fact, 
that with this mourning for sin in the gross, he 
should put forth his hand without scruple to the 
commission of what is actually sinful ? I do not 
know a more familiar exliibition of this, than of a 
man who would be visited with remorse were he to 



walk in the fields on a Sabbath day at the time of 
divine service, and the very same man indulging 
without remorse his propensity to throw ridicule or 
discredit on an absent character. His actual re- 
morse on the commission of all that he feels to be 
sinful, might lead a man to mourn over sin in the 
general ; but surely this general direction of his can 
have no such necessary influence, as the reviewer 
contends for, in the way of leading him to renounce 
what he does not feel to be sinful. But this is what 
he should be made to feel ; and it may be done in 
two ways — either in the didactic way, by a formal 
announcement that the deed in question is con- 
trary to the law of God ; or in the imperative way, 
by bidding him cease from the doing of it, — a way 
no less effective and scriptural than the former, and 
brought to bear in the New Testament upon men 
at the earliest conceivable stage of their progress 
from sin unto righteousness. 

I share most cordially in opinion with the re- 
viewer, that he might extend his observations 
greatly beyond the length of the original pamphlet, 
were he to say all that might be said on the topics 
brought forward in it. I believe that it would re- 
quire the compass of an extended volume to meet 
every objection, and to turn the argument in every 
possible way. I did not anticipate all the notice 
that has been taken of this performance, and am 
fearful lest it should defeat the intended effect on 
the hearts of a plain people. With this feeling I 
close the discussion for the present ; and my desire 
is, that in all I may afterwards say upon this sub- 
ject, I may be preserved from that tone of contro- 
versy, which I feel to be hurtful to the practical 
influence of every truth it accompanies ; and which, 
I fear, may have in so far infected my former com 
munications, as to make it more fitted to arouse the 
speculative tendencies of the mind, and provoke to 
an intellectual warfare, than to tell on the conscience 
and on the doings of an earnest inquirer. 



THE 



INFLUENCE OF BIBLE SOCIETIES, 



ON THE 



TEMPORAL NECESSITIES OF THE POOR. 



ARGUMENT. 

1. The Objection stated. 2. The Radical Answer to it. 3. But the Objection is not true in point 
of fact. 4. A former act of charity does not exempt from the obligation of a new act, if it can be 
afforded. 5. Estimate of the encroachment made by the Bible Society upon the funds of the country. 
6. A Subscriber to the Bible Society does not give less to the Poor on that account. 7. Evidence for 
the truth of this assertion. 8. And explanation of its principle. (1.) The ability for other acts of 
charity nearly as entire as before. 9. (2.) And the disposition greater. 10. Poverty is better kept 
under by a preventive, than by a positive treatment. 11. Exemplified in Scotland. 12. The Bible 
Society has a strong preventive operation. 13. And therefore promotes the secular interests of the 
Poor. 14. The argument carried down to trie case of Penny Societies, 15. Difficulty in the exposi- 
tion of the argument. 16. The effects of a charitable endowment in a parish pernicious to the Poor. 
17. By inducing a dependance upon it. 18. And stripping them of their industrious habits. 19. The 
effects of a Bible Association are in an opposite direction to those of a charitable endowment. 20. And 
it stands completely free of all the objections to which a tax is liable. 21. A Bible Association gives 
dignity to the Poor. 22. And a delicate reluctance to pauperism. 23. The shame of pauperism is the 
best defence against it. 24. How a Bible Association augments this feeling. 25. By dignifying the 
Poor. 26. And adding to the influence of Bible Principles. 27. Exemplified in the humblest situa- 
tion. 28. The progress of these Associations in the country. 29. Compared with other Associations 
for the relief of temporal necessities. 30. The more salutary influence of Bible Associations. 31. And 
how they counteract the pernicious influence of other charities. 32. It is best to confide the secular 
relief of the Poor to individual benevolence. 33. And a Bible Association both augments and en- 
lightens this principle. 



1. Without entering into the positive 
claims of the Bible Society upon the gene- 
rosity of the public, I shall endeavour to do 
away an objection which meets us at the 
very outset of every attempt to raise a sub- 
scription, or to found an institution in its 
favour. The secular necessities of the poor 
are brought into competition with it, and 
every shilling given to the Bible Society is 
represented as an encroachment upon that 
fund which was before allocated to the re- 
lief of poverty. 

2. Admitting the fact stated in the objec- 
tion to be true, we have an answer in readi- 
ness for it. If the Bible Society accomplish 
its professed object, which is, to make those 
who were before ignorant of the Bible bet- 
ter acquainted with it, then the advantage 
given more than atones for the loss sus- 
tained. We stand upon the high ground, 
that eternity is longer than time, and the 
unfading enjoyments of the one a boon 
more valuable than the perishable enjoy- 
ments of the other. Money is sometimes 
expended for the idle purpose of amusing 
the poor by the gratuitous exhibition of a 
spectacle or show. It is a far wiser distribu- 



tion of the money when it is transferred 
from this object to the higher and more 
useful objects of feeding those among them 
who are hungry, clothing those among them 
who are naked, and paying for medicine or 
attendance to those among them who are 
sick. We make bold to say, that if money 
for the purpose could be got from no other 
quarter, it would be a wiser distribution still 
to withdraw it from the objects last men- 
tioned to the supreme object of paying for 
the knowledge of religion to those among 
them who are ignorant ; and, at the hazard 
of being execrated by many, we do not 
hesitate to affirm, that it is better for the 
poor to be worse fed and worse clothed, than 
that they should be left ignorant of those 
Scriptures, whic^ are able to make them 
wise unto salvation through the faith that 
is in Christ Jesus. 

3. But the statement contained in the ob- 
jection is not true. It seems to go upon the 
supposition, that the fund for relieving the 
temporal wants of the poor is the only fund 
which exists in the country; and that when 
any new object of benevolence is started, 
there is no other fund to which we can re- 

320 



INFLUENCE OF EIBLE SOCIETIES. 



321 



pair for the requisite expenses. But there 
are other funds in the country. There is a 
prodigious fund for the maintenance of go- 
vernment, nor do we wish that fund to be 
encroached upon by a single farthing. There 
is a fund out of which the people of the land 
are provided in the necessaries of life : and 
before we incur the odium of trenching 
upon necessaries, let us first inquire, if there 
be no other fund in existence. Go, then, to 
all who are elevated above the class of mere 
labourers, and you will find in their pos- 
session a fund, out of which they are pro- 
vided with what are commonly called the 
superfluities of life. We do not dispute their 
right to these superfluities, nor do we deny 
the quantity of pleasure which lies in the 
enjoyment of them. We only state the ex- 
istence of such a fund, and that by a trifling 
act of self-denial on the part of those who 
possess it, we could obtain all that we are 
pleading for. It is a little hard, that the com- 
petition should be struck between the fund 
of the Bible Society and the fund for reliev- 
ing the temporal wants of the poor, while 
the far larger and more transferable fund 
for superfluities is left out of consideration 
entirely, and suffered to remain an untouch- 
ed and unimpaired quantity. In this way, 
the odium of hostility to the poor is fastened 
upon those who are labouring for their most 
substantial interests, while a set of men who 
neglect the immortality of the poor, and 
would leave their souls to perish, are suf- 
fered to sheer off with the credit of all the 
finer sympathies of our nature. 

4. To whom much is given, of them much 
will be required. Whatever be your former 
liberalities in another direction, when a new 
and a likely direction of benevolence is 
pointed out, the question still comes back 
upon you, What have you to spare? If 
there be a remainder left, it is by the extent 
of this remainder that you will be judged ; 
and it is not right to set the claims of the 
Bible Society against the secular necessities 
of the poor, while means so ample are left, 
that the true way of instituting the compe- 
tition is to set these claims against some 
personal gratification which it is in your 
power to abandon. Have a care, lest with 
the language of philanthropy in your mouth, 
you shall be found guilty of the crudest 
indifference to the true welfare of the spe- 
cies, and lest the Discerner of your heart 
shall perceive how it prefers some sordid 
indulgence of its own to the dearest interests 
of those around you. 

5. But let me not put to hazard the pros- 
perity of our cause, by resting it on a 
standard of charity far too elevated for the 
general practice of the times. Let us now 
drop our abstract reasoning upon the re- 
spective funds, and come to an actual spe- 
cification of their quantities. The truth is, 
that the fund for the Bible Society is so 

2S 



very small, that it is not entitled to make 
its appearance in any abstract argument 
whatever, and were it not to do away even 
the shadow of an objection, we would have 
been ashamed to have thrown the argument 
into the language of general discussion. 
What shall we think of the objection when 
told, that the whole yearly revenue of the 
Bible Society, as derived from the contribu- 
tions of those who support it, does not 
amount to a half-penny per month from 
each householder in Britain and Ireland? 
Can this be considered as a serious invasion 
upon any one fund allotted to other desti- 
nations, and shall the most splendid and 
promising enterprise that ever benevolence 
was engaged in, be arrested upon an objec- 
tion so fanciful? We do not want to oppress 
any individual by the extravagance of our 
demands. It is not in great sums, but in 
the combination of littles, that our strength 
lies. It is the power of combination which 
resolves the mystery. Great has been the 
progress and activity of the Bible Society 
since its first institution. All we want is, 
that this rate of activity be kept up and ex- 
tended. The above statement will convince 
the reader, that there is ample room for the 
extension. The whole fund for the secular 
wants of the poor may be left untouched, 
and as to the fund for luxuries, the revenue 
of the Bible Society may be augmented a 
hundred-fold before this fund is sensibly 
encroached upon. The veriest crumbs and 
sweepings of extravagance would suffice 
us ; and it will be long, and very long, be- 
fore any invasion of ours upon this fund 
shall give rise to any perceivable abridge- 
ment of luxury, or have the weight of a 
straw upon the general style and establish- 
ment of families. 

6. But there is still another way of meet- 
ing the objection. Let us come immediately 
to a question upon the point of fact. Does 
a man, on becoming a subscriber to the 
Bible Society, give less to the secular wants 
of the poor than he did formerly? It is 
true, there is a difficulty in the way of ob- 
taining an answer to this question. He 
who knows best what answer to give will 
be the last to proclaim it. In as far as the 
subscribers themselves are concerned, we 
must leave the answer to their own expe- 
rience, and sure we are that that experience 
will not be against us. But it is not from 
this quarter that we can expect to ob- 
tain the wished for information. The be- 
nevolence of an individual does not stand 
out to the eye of the public. The know- 
ledge of its operations is confined to the 
little neighbourhood within which it expa- 
tiates. It is often kept from the poor them- 
selves, and then the information we are in 
quest of is shut up with the giver in the si- 
lent consciousness of his bosom, and with 
God in the book of his remembrance. 



322 



INFLUENCE OF BIBLE SOCIETIES. 



7. But much good has been done of late 
years by the combined exertions of indi- 
viduals ; and benevolence, when operating 
in this way, is necessarily exposed to pub- 
lic observation. Subscriptions have been 
started for almost every one object which 
benevolence can devise, and the published 
lists may furnish us with data for a par- 
tial solution of the proposed question. In 
point of fact, then, those who subscribe 
for a religious object, subscribe with the 
greatest readiness and liberality for the re- 
lief of human affliction, under all the vari- 
ous forms in which it pleads for sympathy. 
This is quite notorious. The human mind, 
by singling out the eternity of others as the 
main object of its benevolence, does not 
withdraw itself from the care of sustaining 
them on the way which leads to eternity. It 
exerts an act of preference, but not an act 
of exclusion. A friend of mine has been 
indebted to an active and beneficent patron, 
for a lucrative situation in a distant country, 
but he wants money to pay his travelling 
expenses. I commit every reader to his 
own experience of human nature, when I 
rest with him the assertion, that if real 
kindness lay at the bottom of this act of pa- 
tronage, the patron himself is the likeliest 
quarter from which the assistance will come. 
The man who signalizes himself by his re- 
ligious charities, is not the last but the first 
man to whom I would apply in behalf of 
the sick and the destitute. The two prin- 
ciples are not inconsistent. They give sup- 
port and nourishment to each other, or 
rather they are exertions of the same prin- 
ciple. This will appear in full display on 
the day of judgment ; and even in this dark 
and undiscerning world, enough of evidence 
is before us upon which the benevolence of 
the Christian stands nobly vindicated, and 
from which it may be shown, that, while 
its chief care is for the immortality of others, 
it casts a wide and a wakeful eye over all 
the necessities and sufferings of the species. 

8. Nor have we far to look for the ex- 
planation. The two elements which com- 
bine to form an act of charity, are the abi- 
lity and the disposition, and the question 
simply resolves itself into this, " In how far 
these elements will survive a donation to 
the Bible Society, so as to leave the other 
charities unimpaired by it ?" It is certainly 
conceivable, that an individual may give 
every spare farthing of his income to this 
institution. Tn this case, there is a total 
extinction of the first element. But in point 
of fact, this is never done, or done so rarely 
as not to be admitted into any general ar- 
gument. With by far the greater number 
of subscribers, the ability is not sensibly en- 
croached upon. There is no visible re- 
trenchment in the superfluities of life. A 
very slight and partial change in the direc- 
tion of that fund r :which is familiarly known 



by the name of pocket-money, can, gene- 
rally speaking, provide for the whole 
amount of the donation in question. There 
are a thousand floating and incidental ex- 
penses, which can be given up without 
almost the feeling of a sacrifice, and the di- 
version of a few of them to the charity we 
are pleading for, leaves the ability of the 
giver to all sense as entire as before. 

9. But the second element is subject to 
other laws, and the formal calculations of 
arithmetic do not apply to it. The dispo- 
sition is not like the ability, a given quan- 
tity, which suffers an abstraction by every 
new exercise. The effect of a donation 
upon the purse of a giver, is not the same 
with the moral influence of that donation 
upon his heart. Yet the two are assimi- 
lated by our antagonists, and the pedantry 
of computation carries them to results which 
are in the face of all experience. It is not 
so easy to awaken the benevolent principle 
out of its sleep, as, when once awakened in 
behalf of one object, to excite and to inter- 
est it in behalf of another. When the bar 
of selfishness is broken down, and the flood- 
gates of the heart are once opened, the 
stream of beneficence can be turned into a 
thousand directions. It is true, that there 
can be no beneficence without wealth, as 
there can be no stream without water. It 
is conceivable that the opening of the flood- 
gates may give rise to no flow, as the open- 
ing of a poor man's heart to the distresses 
of those around him may give rise to no act 
of almsgiving. But we have already proved 
the abundance of wealth. [Sec. 8.] It is 
the selfishness of the inaccessible heart 
which forms the mighty barrier, and if this 
could be done away, a thousand fertilizing 
streams would issue from it. Now, this is 
what the Bible Society, in many instances, 
has accomplished. It has unlocked the 
avenue to many a heart, which was before 
inaccessible. It has come upon them with 
all the energy of a popular and prevailing 
impulse. It has created in them a new taste 
and a new principle. It has opened the 
fountain, and we are sure that, in every dis- 
trict of the land where a Bible Association 
exists, the general principle of benevolence 
is more active and more expanding than 
ever. 

10. And after all, what is the best me- 
thod of providing for the secular necessi- 
ties of the poor ? Is it by labouring tc 
meet the necessity after it has occurred, or 
by labouring to establish a principle and a 
habit which would go far to prevent its ex- 
istence ? If you wish to get rid of a noxious 
stream, you may first try to intercept it by 
throwing across a barrier ; but in this way, 
you only spread the pestilential water over 
a greater extent of ground, and when the 
basin is filled, a stream as copious as be- 
fore is formed out of its overflow. The 



INFLUENCE OF BIELE SOCIETIES. 



323 



most effectual method, were it possible to 
carry it into accomplishment, would be to 
dry up the source. The parallel in a great 
measure holds. If you wish to extinguish 
poverty, combat with it in its first elements. 
If you confine your beneficence to the re- 
lief of actual poverty, you do nothing. Dry 
up, if possible, the spring of poverty, for 
every attempt to intercept the running 
stream has totally failed. The education 
and the religious principle of Scotland have 
not annihilated pauperism, but they have 
restrained it to a degree that is almost in- 
credible to our neighbours of the South. 
They keep down the mischief in its princi- 
ple. They impart a sobriety and a right 
sentiment of independence to the character 
of our peasantry. They operate as a check 
upon profligacy and idleness. The main- 
tenance of parish schools is a burden upon 
the landed property of Scotland, but it is a 
cheap defence against the poor rates, a bur- 
den far heavier, and which is aggravating 
perpetually. The writer of the paper knows 
of a parish in Fife, the average mainten- 
ance of whose poor is defrayed by twenty- 
four pounds sterling a year, and of a parish, 
of the same population, in Somersetshire, 
where the annual assessments come to 
thirteen hundred pounds sterling. The pre- 
ventive regimen of the one country does 
more than the positive applications of the 
other. In England, they have suffered po- 
verty to rise to all the virulence of a form- 
ed and obstinate disease. But they may as 
well think of arresting the destructive pro- 
gress of a torrent by throwing across an 
embankment, as think that the mere posi- 
tive administration of relief, will put a stop 
to the accumulating mischiefs of poverty. 

11. The exemption of Scotland from the 
miseries of pauperism is due to the educa- 
tion which their people receive at schools, 
and to the Bible which their scholarship 
gives them access to. The man who sub- 
scribes to the divine authority of this sim- 
ple saying, " If any would not work nei- 
ther should he eat," possesses, in the good 
treasure of his own heart, a far more effec- 
tual security against the hardships of indi- 
gence, than the man who is trained, by the 
legal provisions of his country, to sit in 
slothful dependence upon the liberalities of 
those around him. It is easy to be elo- 
quent in the praise of those liberalities, but 
the truth is, that they may be carried to 
the mischievous extent of forming a de- 
praved and beggarly population. The hun- 
gry expectations of the poor will ever keep 
pace with the assessments of the wealthy, 
and their eye will be averted from the ex- 
ertion of their own industry, as the only right 
source of comfort and independence. It is 
quite in vain to think, that positive relief will 
ever do away the wretchedness of poverty. 
Carry the relief beyond a certain limit, and 



you foster the diseased principle which gives 
birth to poverty. On this subject, the people 
of England feel themselves to be in a state 
of almost inextricable helplessness, and they 
are not without their fears of some mighty 
convulsion, which must come upon them 
with all the energy of a tempest, before 
this devouring mischief can be swept away 
from the face of their community. 

12. If any thing can avert this calamity 
from England, it will be the education of 
their peasantry, and this is a cause to which 
the Bible Society is contributing its full 
share of influence. A zeal for the circula- 
tion of the Bible, is inseparable from a zeal 
for extending among the people the capa- 
city of reading it ; and it is not to be con- 
ceived, that the very same individual can be 
eager for the introduction of this volume 
into our cottages, and sit inactive under the 
galling reflection, that it is still a sealed 
book to many thousands of the occupiers. 
Accordingly we find, that the two concerns 
are keeping pace with one another. The 
Bible Society does not overstep the simpli- 
city of its assigned object: but the mem- 
bers of that Society receive an impulse 
from the cause, which carries them to pro- 
mote the education of the poor, either by 
their individual exertions, or by giving 
their support to the Society for Schools. 
The two Societies move in concert. Each 
contributes an essential element in the busi- 
ness of enlightening the people. The one 
furnishes the book of knowledge, and the 
other furnishes the key to it. This division 
of employment, as in every other instance, 
facilitates the work, and renders it more ef- 
fective. But it does not hinder the same indi- 
vidual from giving his countenance to both ; 
and sure I am, that the man whose feelings 
have been already warmed, and whose purse 
has been already drawn in behalf of the one, 
is a likelier subject for an application in behalf 
of the other, than he whose money is still un- 
touched, but whose heart is untouched also. 

13. It will be seen, then, that the Bible 
Society is not barely defensible, but may be 
plead for upon that very ground on which 
its enemies have raised their opposition to 
it. Its immediate object is neither to feed 
the hungry nor to clothe the naked, but in 
every country under the benefit of its ex- 
ertions, there will be less hunger to feed, 
and less nakedness to clothe. It does not 
cure actual poverty, but it anticipates event- 
ful poverty. It aims its decisive thrust at 
the heart and principle of the mischief, and 
instead of suffering it to form into the 
obstinacy of an inextirpable disease, it 
smothers and destroys it in the infancy of 
its first elements. The love which worketh 
no ill to his neighbour will not suffer the 
true Christian to live in idleness upon an- 
other's bounty ; and he will do as Paul did 
before him, he will labour with his hands 



324 



INFLUENCE OF BIBLE SOCIETIES. 



rather than be burdensome. Could we re- 
form the improvident habits of the people, 
and pour the healthful infusion of Scrip- 
ture principle into their hearts, it would 
reduce the existing poverty of the land to a 
very humble fraction of its present extent. 
We make bold to say, that in ordinary 
times there is not one-tenth of the pauper- 
ism of England due to unavoidable misfor- 
tune. It has grown out of a vicious and 
impolitic system, and the millions which 
are raised every year have only served to 
nourish and extend it. Nov/, the Bible So- 
ciety is a prime agent in the work of coun- 
teracting this disorder. Its mode of pro- 
ceeding carries in it all the cheapness and 
all the superior efficacy of a preventive 
operation. With a revenue not equal to 
the poor-rates of many a county, it is do- 
ing more even for the secular interests of 
the poor than all the charities of England 
united; and while a palling and injudicious 
sympathy is pouring out its complaints 
against it, it is sowing the seeds of charac- 
ter and independence, and rearing for fu- 
ture days the spectacle of a thriving, sub- 
stantial, and well-conditioned peasantry. 

14. I have hitherto been supposing, that 
the rich only are the givers, but I now call 
on the poor to be sharers in this work of 
charity. It is true, that of these poor there 
are some who depend on charity for their 
subsistence, and these have no right to give 
what they receive from others. And there 
are some who have not arrived at this state 
of dependence, but are on the very verge 
of it. Let us keep back no part of the truth 
from them, "If any provide not for his 
own, and specially for those of his own 
house, he hath denied the faith, and is 
worse than an infidel." There are others 
again, and these I apprehend form by far 
the most numerous class of society, who 
can maintain themselves in humble, but 
honest independence, who can spare a little 
and not feel it, who can do what Paul ad- 
vises,* lay aside their penny a week as God 
hath prospered them, who can share that 
blessedness which the Saviour spoke of 
when he said, It was more blessed to give 
than to receive ; who, though they cannot 
equal their rich neighbours in the amount 
of their donation, can bestow their some- 
thing, and Can, at all events, carry in their 
bosom a heart as warm to the cause, and 
call down as precious a blessing from the 
God who witnesses it. The Bible Society 
is opposed on the ground of its diverting a 
portion of relief from the secular necessi- 
ties of the poor, even when the rich only 
are called upon to support it. When the 
application for support is brought down 
to the poor themselves, and instead of the 
recipients, it is proposed to make them the 



* 1 Corinthians xvi. 2. 



dispensers of charity, we may lay our ac- 
count with the opposition being still more 
clamorous. — We undertake to prove, that 
this opposition is founded on a fallacy, and 
that, by interesting the great mass of a pa- 
rish in the Bible Society, and assembling 
them into a penny association for the sup- 
port of it, you raise a defence against the 
extension of pauperism. 

15. We feel a difficult}/ in this undertak- 
ing, not from any uncertainty which hangs 
over the principle, but from the difficulty of 
bringing forward a plain and popular exhi- 
bition of it. However familiar the princi- 
ple may be to a student of political science, 
it carries in it an air of paradox to the mul- 
titude, and it were well if this air of paradox 
were the only obstacle to its reception. But 
to the children of poesy and fine sentiment, 
the principle in question carries in it an air 
of barbarity also, and all the rigbur of a pure 
and impregnable argument has not been 
able to protect the conclusions of Malthus 
from their clamorous indignation.. There is 
a kind of hurrying sensibility about them 
which allows neither time nor temper for 
listening to any calculation on the subject, 
and there is not a more striking vanity 
under the sun, than that the substantial in- 
terests of the poor have suffered less from 
the malignant and the unfeeling, than from 
those who give without wisdom, and who 
feel without consideration ; 

Blessed is he that wisely doth 
The poor man's case consider. 

16. Let me put the case of two parishes^ 
in the one of which there is a known and 
public endowment, out of which an annual 
sum is furnished for the maintenance of the 
poor ; and that in the other there is no such 
endowment. At the outset, the poor of the 
first parish may be kept in greater comfort 
than the poor of the second ; but it is the 
lesson of all experience, that no annual sum, 
however great, will be able to keep them 
permanently in greater comfort. The cer- 
tain effect of an established provision for the 
poor is a relaxation of their economical 
habits, and an increased number of improvi- 
dent marriages. When their claim to a 
provision is known, that claim is always 
counted upon, and it were well, if to flatter 
their natural indolence, they did not carry 
the calculation beyond the actual benefit 
they can ever receive. But this is what they 
always do. When a public charity is known 
and counted upon, the relaxation of frugal 
and provident habits is carried to such an ex- 
tent, as not only to absorb the whole produce 
of the charity, but to leave new wants unpro- 
vided for, and the effect of the benevolent in 
stitution is just to create a population more 
wretched and more clamorous than ever. 

17. In the second parish, the economical 
habits of the people are kept unimpaired, 



INFLUENCE OF BIBLE SOCIETIES. 



325 



and just because their economy is forced to 
take a higher aim, and to persevere in it. 
The aim of the first people is to provide for 
themselves a part of their maintenance : 
The aim of the second people is to provide 
for themselves their whole maintenance. 
We do not deny, that even among the latter 
we will meet with distress and poverty, just 
such distress and such poverty as are to be 
found in the average of Scottish parishes. 
This finds its alleviation in private benevo- 
lence. To alleviate poverty is all that can 
be done for it ; to extinguish it, we fear is 
hopeless. Sure we are, that the known and 
regular provisions of England will never 
extinguish it, and that, in respect of the 
poor themselves, the second parish is under 
a better system than the first. The poor- 
rates are liable to many exceptions, but there 
is none of them more decisive with him 
who cares for the eternity of the poor, than 
the temptation they hold out to positive 
guilt, the guilt of not working with their 
own hands, and so becoming burdensome 
to others.* 

18. Let us conceive a political change in 
the circumstances of the country, and that 
the public charity of the first parish fell 
among the ruin of other institutions. Then 
its malignant influence would be felt in 
all its extent ; and it would be seen, that it, 
in fact, had impoverished those whom it 
professed to sustain, that it had stript them 
of a possession far more valuable than all 
it had ever given, that it had stripped them 
of industrious habits, and left those whom 
its influence never reached, wealthier in the 
resources of their own superior industry, 
than the artificial provisions of an unwise 
and meddling benevolence could ever make 
them. 

19. The comparison between these two 
parishes paves the way for another compari- 
son. Let me now put the case of a third 
parish, where a Bible Association is insti- 
tuted, and where the simple regulation of a 
penny a week, throws it open to the bulk 
of the people. What effect has this upon 
their economical habits 1 It just throws 
them at a greater distance from the thrift- 
lessness which prevails in the first parish, 
and leads them to strike a higher aim in 
the way of economy than the people of the 
second. The general aim of economy in 
humble life, is to keep even with the world ; 
but it is known to every man at all familiar 
with that class of society, that the great 
majority may strike their aim a little higher, 
and in point of fact, have it in their power 
to redeem an annual sum from the mere 
squanderings of mismanagement and care- 
lessness. The unwise provisions in the pa- 
rish have had the effect of sinking the in- 
come of the poor below their habits of 



* Acts xx. 35. 1 Tim. v. 8. 



expenditure, and they are brought, perma- 
nently and irrecoverably brought into a 
state of pauperism. In the second parish, 
the income, generally speaking, is even with 
the habits of expenditure. In the third, the 
income is above the habits of expenditure, 
and above it by the annual sum contributed 
to the Bible Society. The circumstance of 
being members to such a Society, throws 
them at a greater distance from pauperism 
than if they had not been members of it. 

20. The effect on the economical habits 
of the people would just be the same in 
whatever way the stated annual sum was 
obtained from them, even though a com- 
pulsory tax were the instrument of raising 
it * This assimilation of our plan to a tax 
may give rise to a world of impetuous de- 
clamation, but let it ever be remembered, 
that the institution of a Bible Society gives 
you the whole benefit of such a tax without 
its odiousness. It brings up their economy 
to a higher pitch, but it does so, not in the 
way which they resist, but in the way which 
they choose. The single circumstance of 
its being a voluntary act, forms the defence 
and the answer to all the clamours of an 
affected sympathy. You take from the poor. 
No ! they give. You take beyond their abil- 
ity. Of this they are the best judges. You 
abridge their comforts. No ! there is a com- 
fort in the exercise of charity ; there is a 
comfort in the act of lending a hand to a 
noble enterprise; there is a comfort in the 
contemplation of its progress; there is a 
comfort in rendering a service to a friend, 
and when that friend is the Saviour, and 
that service the circulation of the message 
he left behind him, it is a comfort which 
many of the poor are ambitious to share in. 
Leave them to judge of their comfort, and 
if in point of fact, they do give their penny 
a week to a Bible Society, it just speaks 
them to have more comfort in this way of 
spending it than in any other which occurs 
to them. 

21. Perhaps it does not occur to those 
friends of the poor while they are sitting in 
judgment on their circumstances and feed- 
ings, how unjustly and how unworthily 
they think of them. They do not conceive 
how truth and benevolence can be at all 
objects to them, and suppose, that after they 
have got the meat to feed, the house to 
shelter, the raiment to cover them, there is 
nothing else that they will bestow a penny 
upon. They may not be able to express 
their feelings on a suspicion so ungenerous, 
but I shall do it for them ; " We have souls 
as well as you, and precious to our hearts 
is the Saviour who died for them. It is true 



* I must here suppose the sum to be a stated 
one, and a feeling of security on the part of the 
people, that the tax shall not be subject to varia- 
tion at the caprice of an arbitrary government. 



326 



INFLUENCE OF BIBLE SOCIETIES. 



we have our distresses, but these have bound 
us more firmly to our Bibles, and it is the 
desire of our hearts, that a gift so precious, 
should be sent to the poor of other coun- 
tries. The word of God is our hope and our 
rejoicing; we desire that it may be theirs 
aiso, that the wandering savage may know 
it and be glad, and the poor negro, under 
the lash of his master, may be told of a 
Master in heaven who is full of pity, and 
full of kindness. Do you think that sym- 
pathy for such as these is your peculiar at- 
tribute? Know that our hearts are made 
of the same materials with your own, that 
we can feel as well as you, and out of the 
earnings of a hard and honest industry, we 
shall give an offering to the cause; nor shall 
we cease our exertions till the message of 
salvation be carried round the globe, and 
made known to the countless millions who 
live in guilt, and who die in darkness." 

22. And here it is obvious that a superior 
habit of economy is not the only defence 
which the Bible Society raises against pau- 
perism. The smallness of the sum contri- 
buted may give a littleness to this argu- 
ment, but not, let it be remembered, without 
giving an equal littleness to the objection 
of those who declaim against the institution, 
on the ground of its oppressiveness to the 
poor contributors. The great defence which 
such a Society establishes against pauper- 
ism, is the superior tone of dignity and in- 
dependence which it imparts to the charac- 
ter of him who supports it. He stands on 
the high ground of being a dispenser of 
charity ; and before he can submit to be- 
come a recipient of charity, he must let 
himself farther down than a poor man in 
ordinary circumstances. To him the transi- 
tion will be more violent, and the value of 
this principle will be acknowledged by all 
who perceive that it is reluctance on the 
part of the poor man to become a pauper, 
which forms the mighty barrier against the 
extension of pauperism. A man by becom- 
ing the member of a benevolent association, 
puts himself into the situation of a giver. 
He stands at a greater distance than before 
from the situation of a receiver. He has a 
wider interval to traverse before he can 
reach this point. He will feel it a greater 
degradation, and to save himself from it, 
he will put forth all his powers of frugality 
and exertion. The idea of restraining pau- 
perism by external administrations, seems 
now to be generally abandoned. But could 
we thus enter into the hearts of the poor, 
we could get in at the root of the mischief, 
and by fixing there a habit of economy and 
independence, more would be done for 
them, than by all the liberalities of all the 
opulent. 

23. In those districts of Scotland where 
poor-rates are unknown, the descending 
avenue which leads to pauperism is power- 



fully guarded by the stigma which attaches 
to it. Remove this stigma, and our cottages, 
now rich in the possession of contentment 
and industry, would resign their habits, and 
crowd into the avenue by thousands. The 
shame of descending, is the powerful stimu- 
lus which urges them to contest it manfully 
with the difficulties of their situation, and 
which bears them through in all the pride 
of honest independence. Talk of this to 
the people of the South, and it sounds in 
their ears like an Arcadian story. But there 
is not a clergyman among us who has not 
witnessed the operation of the principle in 
all its fineness, and in all its moral delicacy ; 
and surely a testimony is due to those vil- 
lage heroes who so nobly struggle with the 
difficulties of pauperism, that they may shun 
and surmount its degradation. 

24. A Bible Association gives additional 
vigour and buoyancy to this elevated prin- 
ciple. The trifle which it exacts from its 
contributor is in truth never missed by him, 
but it puts him in the high attitude of a 
giver, and every feeling which it inspires, 
is on the side of independence and delicacy. 
Go over each of these feelings separately, 
and you find that they are all fitted to for- 
tify his dislike at the shame and dependence 
of pauperism. There is a consciousness of 
importance which unavoidably attaches to 
the share he has taken in the support and 
direction of a public charity. There is the 
expanding effect of the information which 
comes to him through the medium of the cir- 
culated reports, which lays before him the 
mighty progress of an institution reaching to 
all countries, and embracing in its ample 
grasp, the men of all latitudes and all lan- 
guages, which deeply interests him in the ob- 
ject, and perpetuates his desire of promoting 
it. A man with his heart so occupied, and his 
attention so directed, is not capable of a vo- 
luntary descent to pauperism. He has in fact 
become a more cultivated and intellectual 
being than formerly. His mind gathers an 
enlargement from the wide and animating 
contemplations which are set before him, 
and we appeal to the reflection of every 
reader, if such a man will descend as rea- 
dily to a dependence on the charity of 
others, as he whose mind is void of informa- 
tion, and whose feelings are void of dignity. 

25. In such associations, the rich and the 
poor meet together. They share in one ob- 
ject, and are united by the sympathy of 
one feeling and of one interest. We have not 
to look far into human nature to be con- 
vinced of the happy and the harmonizing 
influence which this must have upon so- 
ciety, and how, in the glow of one common 
cordiality, all asperity and discontent must 
give way to the kindlier principles of our 
nature. The days have been, when the very 
name of an association carried terror and 
suspicion along with it. — In a Bible Asso- 



INFLUENCE OF BIBLE SOCIETIES. 



32? 



ciation there is nothing which our rulers 
need to be afraid of, and they may rest as- 
sured, that the moral influence of such in- 
stitutions is all on the side of peace and 
loyalty. But to confine myself to the pre- 
sent argument. Who does not see that they 
exalt the general tone and character of our 
people, that they bring them nearer to the 
dignity of superior and cultivated life, and 
that therefore, though their direct aim is 
not to mitigate poverty, they go a certain 
way to dry up the most abundant of its 
sources. 

26. Let me add, that the direct influence 
of the Bible principles is inseparable from 
a zeal for the circulation of the Bible. It 
is not to be conceived, that anxiety for 
sending it to others can exist, while there is 
no reverence for it among ourselves, and 
we appeal to those districts where such as- 
sociations have been formed, if a more visi- 
ble attention to the Bible, and a more se- 
rious impression of its authority, is not the 
consequence of them. Now, the lessons 
of this Bible are all on the side of industry. 
They tell us that it is more blessed to give 
than to receive, and that therefore, a man 
who, by his own voluntary idleness, is 
brought under the necessity of receiving, 
has disinherited himself of a blessing. The 
poor must have bread, but the Bible com- 
mands and exhorts, that wherever it is pos- 
sible, that bread should be their own, and 
that all who are able should make it their 
own by working for it* No precept can 
be devised which bearsjnore directly on the 
source of pauperism. *The minister who, 
in his faithful exposition of the Bible, urged 
this precept successfully upon his people, 
would do much to extinguish pauperism 
among them. It is true that he does not 
always urge successfully ; but surely if suc- 
cess is to be more looked for in one quarter 
than in another, it is among the pious and 
intelligent peasantry whom he has assem- 
bled around him, whom he has formed into 
a little society for the circulation of the Bi- 
ble, and whose feelings he has interested 
in this purest and worthiest of causes. 

27. Nor is the operation of this principle 
confined to the actual contributor. We 
have no doubt that it has been beautifully 
exemplified even among those who, unable 
to give their penny a week, either stand on 
the very verge of pauperism, or have got 
within its limits. They are unable to give 
any thing of their own, but they may be 
able at the same time to forego the wonted 
allowance which they received from ano- 
ther, or a part of it. The refusals of the 
poor to take an offered charity, or the 
whole amount of the offer, are quite familiar 
to a Scottish clergyman ; and the plea on 
which they set the refusal, that it would be 



* 2 Thessalonians iii. 12. 



taking from others who are even needier 
than they, entitles them, when honestly ad- 
vanced, to all the praise of benevolence. 
A spirit of pious attachment to the Bible 
would prompt a refusal of the same kind. 
You have other and higher claims upon 
you ; you have the spiritual necessities of 
the world to provide for, and that you may 
be the more able to make the provision, 
leave me to the frugality of my own ma- 
nagement. In this way the principle de- 
scends, and carries its healthful influence 
into the very regions of pauperism. It is 
the only principle competent to its extirpa- 
tion. The obvious expedient of a positive 
supply to meet the wants of existing pover- 
ty, has failed, and the poor-rates of Eng- 
land will ever be a standing testimony to 
the utter inefficiency of this expedient, 
which, instead of killing the disease, has 
rooted and confirmed it. Try the other 
expedient then. The remedy against the 
extension of pauperism does not lie in the 
liberalities of the rich. It lies in the hearts 
and habits of the poor. Plant in their bo- 
soms a principle of independence. Give a 
higher tone of delicacy to their characters. 
Teach them to recoil from pauperism as a 
degradation. The degradation may, at 
times, be unavoidable ; but the thing which 
gives such an alarming extent to the mis- 
chief, is the debasing influence of poor-rates, 
whereby, in the vast majority of instances, 
the degradation is voluntary. But if there 
be an exalting influence in Bible Associa- 
tions to counteract this, if they foster a right 
spirit of importance; above all, if they se- 
cure a readier submission to the lessons of 
the volume which they are designed to cir- 
culate, who does not see, that, in proportion 
as they are multiplied and extended over 
the face of the country, they carry along 
with them the most effectual regimen for 
preventing the extension of poverty. 

28. And here it may be asked, if it be at 
all likely that these Associations will ex- 
tend to such a degree as to have a sensible 
influence upon the habits of the country ? 
Nothing more likely. A single individual 
of influence in each parish, would make the 
system universal. In point of fact, it is 
making progress every month, and such is 
the wonderful spirit of exertion which is 
now abroad, that in a few years every little 
district of the land may become the seat of a 
Bible Society. We are now upon the dawn 
of very high anticipations, and the whole- 
some effect upon the habits and principles 
of the people at home, is not the least of 
them. That part of the controversy which 
relates to the direct merits of the Bible So- 
ciety may be looked upon as already ex- 
hausted ;* arid could the objection, founded 



* See Dealtry's pamphlets. Letter from the 
late Dr. Murray, professor of Hebrew in the Uni- 



328 



INFLUENCE OF BIBLE SOCIETIES. 



on its interference with the relief of the poor, 
be annihilated, or still more, could it be con- 
verted into a positive argument in its behalf, 
we are not aware of a single remaining 
plea upon which a rational or benevolent 
man can refuse his concurrence to it. 

29. And the plea of conceived injury to the 
poor deserves to be attended to. It wears 
an amiable complexion, and we believe, that 
in some instances, a real sympathy with 
their distresses, lies at the bottom of it. Let 
sympathy be guided by consideration. It 
is the part of a Christian to hail benevo- 
lence in all its forms ; but when a plan is 
started for the relief of the destitute, is he 
to be the victim of a popular and sentimen- 
tal indignation, because he ventures to take 
up the question whether the plan be really 
an effective one ? We know that in various 
towns of Scotland you meet with two dis- 
tinct Penny Societies, one a Bible Associa- 
tion, the other for the relief of the indigent. 
It is to be regretted that there should ever 
be any jealousy between them, but we be- 
lieve, that agreeably to what we have al- 
ready said, it will often be found that the 
one suggested the other, and that the sup- 
porters of the former, are the most zealous, 
and active, and useful friends of the latter. 
We cannot, however, suppress the fact, that 
there is now a growing apprehension lest 
the growth of the latter Societies should 
break down the delicacies of the lower or- 
ders, and pave the way for a permanent 
introduction of poor-rates. There is a 
pretty general impression, that the system 
may be carried too far, and the* uncertainty 
as to the precise limit has given the feeling 
to many who have embarked with enthu- 
siasm, that they are now engaged in a tick- 
lish and questionable undertaking. I do 
not attempt either to confirm or to refute 
this impression, but I count it a piece of 
justice to the associations I am pleading 
ibr, to assert, that they stand completely 
free of every such exception. The Bible 
Society is making steady advances towards 
the attainment of its object, and the sure 
effect of multiplying its subscribers is to con- 
duct it in a shorter time to the end of its la- 
bours. A Society for the relief of tempo- 
ral necessities is grasping at an object that 
is completely unattainable, and the mischief 
is, that the more known, and the more ex- 
tensive, and the more able it becomes, it is 
sure to be more counted on, and at last, to 
create more poverty than it provides for. 
The Bible Society aims at making every 



versity of Edinburgh, to Dr. Charles Stuart. 
Steinkoff's Tour on the Continent. Edinburgh 
Review, vol. xix. p. 39 ; and above all, the reports 
and summaries of the institution itself, where you 
will meet with a cloud of testimonies from Mora- 
vians, Missionaries, E-oman Catholics, the Literati 
of our chief European towns, and men of piety 
and public spirit in all quarters, of the world. 



land a land of Bibles, and this aim it will ac- 
complish after it has translated the Bible 
into all languages, and distributed a sample 
large enough to create a native and univer- 
sal demand for them.* After the people of 
the Avorld have acquired such a taste for the 
Bible, and such a sense of its value as to pur- 
chase it for themselves, the Society termi- 
nates its career, and instead of the corrup- 
tions and abuses which other charities scat- 
ter in their way, it leaves the poor to whom 
it gives, more enlightened, and the poor 
from whom it takes, more elevated than it 
found them. 

30. ' Charity,' says Shakspeare, 1 is twice 
blest. It blesses him who gives, and him 
who takes.' This is far from being univer- 
sally true. There is a blessing annexed to 
the heart which deviseth liberal things. 
Perhaps the founder of the English poor- 
rates acquired this blessing, but the indo- 
lence and depravity which they have been 
the instruments of spreading over the face 
of the country, are incalculable. If we 
Wish to see the assertion of the poet realised 
in its full extent, go to such a charity as we 
are now pleading for, where the very exer- 
cise of giving on the one hand, and the in- 
struction received on the other, have the 
effect of narrowing the limits of pauperism, 
by creating a more virtuous and dignified 
population. 

31. There is poverty to be met with in 
every land, and we are ready to admit, that 
a certain proportion of it is due to unavoid- 
able misfortune. But it is no less true, that in 
those countries where there is a known and 
established provision for the necessities of the 
poor, the greater proportion of the poverty 
which exists in them is due to the debasing 
influence of a public charity on the habits 
of the people. The institution we are 
pleading for, counteracts this influence. It 
does not annihilate all poverty, but it tends 
to annihilate the greater part of it. It ar- 
rests the progress of the many who were 
making a voluntary descent to pauperism, 
and it leaves none to be provided for but 
the few who have honestly struggled against 
their distresses, and have struggled in vain. 

32. And how shall they be provided for ? 
You may erect a public institution. This, 
in fact, is the same with erecting a signal 
of invitation, and the voluntary and self- 
created poor will rush in, to the exclusion 
of those modest and unobtrusive poor who 
are the genuine objects of charity. This is 
the never failing mischief of a known and 
established provision,f and it has been sadly 

* But this native demand never will be created 
without the exertion of Missionaries, and the 
above reasoning applies, in its most important 
parts, to Missionary Associations. See Appendix. 

t We must here except all those institutions, 
the object of which is to provide for involuntary 
distress, such as hospitals, and dispensaries, and 



APPENDIX. 



S29 



exemplified in England. The only method 
of doing away the mischief is to confide 
the relief of the poor to individual benevo- 
lence. This draws no dependence along 
with it. It is not counted upon like a pub- 
lic and proclaimed charity. It brings the 
claims of the poor under the discriminating 
eye of a neighbour, who will make a differ- 
ence between a case of genuine helplessness, 
and a case of idleness or misconduct. It 
turns the tide of benevolence into its true 
channel, and it will ever be found, that un- 
der its operation, the poverty of misfortune 
is better seen to, and the poverty of im- 
providence and guilt is more effectually 
prevented. 

33. My concluding observation then is, 
that the extension of Bible Societies, while 
it counteracts, in various directions, the 
mischief of poor-rates, augments that prin- 
ciple of individual benevolence which is the 
best substitute for poor-rates. You add to 
the stock of individual benevolence, by add- 
ing to the number of benevolent individuals, 
and this is the genuine effect of a Bible As- 



sociation. Or, you add to the stock of in- 
dividual benevolence in a country, by add- 
ing to the intensity of the benevolent prin- 
ciple, and this is the undoubted tendency 
of a Bible Association* And what is of 
mighty importance in this argument, a Bi- 
ble Association not only awakens the be- 
nevolent principle, but it enlightens it. It 
establishes an intercourse between the va- 
rious orders of society, and on no former 
occasion in the history of this country, have 
the rich and the poor come so often to- 
gether upon a footing of good will. The 
kindly influence of this is incalculable. It 
brings the poor under the eye of their richer 
neighbours. The visits and inquiries con- 
nected with the objects of the Bible Society, 
bring them into contact with one another. 
The rich come to be more skilled in the 
wants and difficulties of the poor, and by 
entering their houses, and joining with 
them in conversation, they not only acquire 
a benevolence towards them, but they ga- 
ther that knowledge which is so essential 
to guide and enlighten their benevolence. 



APPENDIX. 



It is evident, that the above reasoning applies, 
in its chief parts, to benevolent Associations, in- 
stituted for any other religious purpose. It is 
not necessary to restrict the argument to tbe case 
of Bible Associations. I should be sorry if the 
Bible Society were to engross the religious benevo- 
lence of the public, and if, in the multiplication 
of its auxiliaries over the face of the country, it 
were to occupy the whole ground, and leave no 
room for the great and important claims of other 
institutions. 

Of this I conceive that there is little danger. 
The revenue of each of these Societies is founded 
upon voluntary contributions, and what is volun- 
tary may be withdrawn or transferred to other ob- 
jects. I may give both to a Bible and a Mission- 
ary Society, or if I can only afford to give to one, 
I may select either, according to my impression of 
their respective claims. In this way a vigilant and 
(liscerning public will suit its benevolence to the 
urgency of the case, and it is evident, that each 
institution can employ the same methods for ob- 
taining patronage and support. Each can, and 
does bring forward a yearly statement of its claims 
and necessities. Each has the same access to the 
public through the medium of the pulpit or the 
press. Each can send its advocates over the face 
of the country, and every individual, forrning his 



asylums for the lunatic or the blind. A man may 
resign himself to idleness, and become wilfully poor, 
that he may eat of the public bread, but he will 
not become wilfully sick or maimed that he may 
receive medicines from a dispensary, or undergo 
an operation in a hospital. 
* Sec. 9. 

2T 



own estimate of their respective claims, will ap- 
portion his benevolence accordingly. 

Now what is done by an individual, may be 
done by every such Association as I am now 
pleading for. Its members may sit in judgment 
on the various schemes of utility which are now 
in operation, and though originally formed as an 
auxiliary to the Bible Society, it may keep itself 
open to other calls, and occasionally give of its 
funds to Missionaries, or Moravians, or the So- 
ciety for Gaelic Schools, or the African Institu- 
tion, or to the Jewish, and Baptist, and Hibernian, 
and Lancasterian Societies. 

In point of fact, the subordinate Associations 
of the country are tending towards this arrange- 
ment, and it is a highly beneficial arrangement. It 
carries in it a most salutary control over all these 
various institutions, each labouring to maintain 
itself in reputation with the public, and to secure 
the countenance of this great Patron. Indolence 
and corruption may lay hold of an endowed cha- 
rity, but when the charity depends upon public 
favour, a few glaring examples of mismanagement 
would annihilate it. 

During a few of the first years of the Bible So- 
ciety, the members of other Societies were alarmed 
at the rapid extension of its popularity, and ex- 
pressed their fears lest it should engross all the 
attention and benevolence of the religious public. 
But the reverse has happened, and a principle 
made use of in the body of this pamphlet may be 
weD illustrated by the history of this matter. [Sec. 
9.] The Bible "Society has drawn a great yearly 
sum of money from the public, and the first im- 
pression was, that it would exhaust the fund foi 
religious charities. But while it drew money from 



330 



APPENDIX. 



the hand, it sent a fresh and powerful excitement 
of Christian benevolence into the heart, and under 
the influence of this creative principle, the fund 
has extended to such a degree, as not only to meet 
the demands of the new Society, but to yield a 
more abundant revenue to the older Societies than 
ever. We believe that the excitement goes much 
farther than this, and that many a deed of ordinary 
charity could be traced to the impulse of the cause 
we are pleading for. We hazard the assertion, 
that many thousands of those who contribute to 
the Bible Society, find in themselves a gi-eater 
readiness to every good work, since the period of 
their connexion with it, and that in the wholesome 
channel of individual benevolence, more hunger is 
fed, and more nakedness clothed throughout the 
land, than at any period anterior to the formation 
of our Religious Societies. 

The alarm grounded upon the tendency of 
these Societies with their vast revenues, to im- 
poverish the country, is ridiculous. If ever their 
total revenue shall amount to a sum which can 
make it worthy of consideration to an enlightened 
economist at all, it may be proved that it trenches 
upon no national interest whatever, that it leaves 
population and public revenue on precisely the 
same footing of extent and prosperity in which it 
found them, and that it interferes with no one ob- 



ject which patriot or politician needs to care for. 
In the mean time it may suffice to state, that the 
income of all the Bible and Missionary Societies in 
the island, would not do more than defray the an- 
nual maintenance of one ship of the line. When 
put by the side of the millions which are lavished 
without a sigh on the enterprises of war, it is 
nothing; and shall this veriest trifle be grudged 
to the advancement of a cause, which, when car- 
ried to its accomplishment, will put an end to war, 
and banish all its passions and atrocities from the 
world? 

I should be sorry if Penny Associations were to 
bind themselves down to the support of the Bible 
Society. I should like to see them exercising a 
judgment over the numerous claims which are 
now before the public, and giving occasionally of 
their funds to other religious institutions. The 
effect of this very exercise would be to create a 
liberal and well-informed peasantry, to open a wider 
sphere to their contemplations, and to raise the 
standard not merely of piety but of general intel- 
ligence among them. The diminution of pau- 
perism is only part of the general effect which the 
multiplication of these Societies will bring about 
in the country ; and if my limits allowed me, I 
might expatiate on their certain influence in raising 
the tone and character of the British population. 



A SERMON 

PREACHED BEFORE THE SOCIETY IN SCOTLAND, 

FOR 

PROPAGATING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. 

(incorporated by royal charter,) 

AT THEIR ANNIVERSARY MEETING, IN THE HIGH CHURCH OF EDINBURGH, ON 
THURSDAY, JUNE 2, 1814. 



And Nathaniel said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth ? Philip saith unto him, 

Come and see." — John i. 46. 



The principle of association, however 
useful in the main, has a blinding and mis- 
leading effect in many instances. Give it a 
wide enough field of induction to work 
upon, and it will carry you to a right con- 
clusion upon any one case or question that 
comes before you. But the evil is, that it 
often carries you forward with as much 
confidence upon a limited, as upon an en- 
larged field of experience, and the man of 
narrow views will, upon a few paltry indi- 
vidual recollections, be as obstinate in the 
assertion of his own maxim, and as boldly 
come forward with his own sweeping gene- 
rality, as if the whole range of nature and 
observation had been submitted to him. 

To aggravate the mischief, the opinion 
thus formed upon the specialities of his 
own limited experience, obtains a holding 
and a tenacity in his mind, which dispose 
him to resist all the future facts and in- 
stances that come before him. Thus it is 
that the opinion becomes a prejudice ; and 
that no statement, however true, or how- 
ever impressive, will be able to dislodge it. 
You may accumulate facts upon facts, but 
the opinion he has already formed, has ac- 
quired a certain right of pre-occupancy 
over him. It is the law of the mind which, 
like the similar law of society, often carries 
it over the original principles of justice, and 
it is this which gives so strong a positive 
influence to error, and makes its overflow 
so very slow and laborious an operation. 

I know not the origin of the prejudice re- 
specting the town of Nazareth ; or what it 
was that gave rise to an aphorism of such 
sweeping universality, as that no good thing 
could come out of it. Perhaps in two, three, 
or more instances, individuals may have 
come out of it who threw a discredit over 



the place of their nativity by the profligacy 
of their actions. Hence an association be- 
tween the very name of the town, and the 
villainy of its inhabitants. The association 
forms into an opinion. The opinion is em- 
bodied into a proverb, and is transmitted in 
the shape of a hereditary prejudice to future 
generations. It is likely enough, that many 
instances could have been appealed to, of 
people from the town of Nazareth, who 
gave evidence in their characters and lives 
against the prejudice in question. But it is 
not enough that evidence be offered by the 
one party. It must be attended to by the 
other. The disposition to resist it must be 
got over. The love of truth and justice 
must prevail over that indolence which likes 
to repose, without disturbance, in its present 
convictions; and over that malignity which, 
I fear, makes a dark and hostile impression 
of others, too congenial to many hearts. 
Certain it is, that when the strongest possible 
demonstration was offered in the person of 
him who was the finest example of the good 
and fair, it was found that the inveteracy 
of the prejudice could withstand it ; and it 
is to be feared that with the question, " Can 
any good come out of Nazareth ?" there 
were many in that day who shut their eyes 
and their affections against him. 

Thus it was that the very name of a town 
fastened an association of prejudice upon 
all its inhabitants. But this is only one ex- 
ample out of the many. A sect may be 
thrown into discredit by a very few of its 
individual specimens, and the same associa- 
tion be fastened upon all its members. A 
society may be thrown into discredit by the 
failure of one or two of its undertakings, 
and this will be enough to entail suspicion 
and ridicule upon all its future operations. 

331 



332 



MISSIONARY SERMON. 



A system may be thrown into discredit by 
the fanaticism and folly of some of its ad- 
vocates, and it may be long before it 
emerges from the contempt of a precipitate 
and unthinking public, ever ready to follow 
the impulse of her former recollections ; it 
may be long before it is reclaimed from ob- 
scurity by the eloquence of future defend- 
ers ; and there may be the struggle and the 
perseverance of many years before the ex- 
isting association, with all its train of ob- 
loquies, and disgusts, and prejudices, shall 
be overthrown. 

A lover of truth is thus placed on the 
right field for the exercise of his principles. 
It is the field of his faith and of his pa- 
tience, and in which he is called to a manly 
encounter with the enemies of his cause. 
He may have much to bear, and little but 
the mere force of principle to uphold him. 
But what a noble exhibition of mind, when 
this force is enough for it ; when, though 
unsupported by the sympathy of other 
minds, it can rest on the truth and righ- 
teousness of its own principle ; when it can 
select its object from among the thousand 
entanglements of error, and keep by it 
amidst all the clamours of hostility and 
contempt ; when all the terrors of disgrace 
cannot alarm it; when all the levities of 
ridicule cannot shame it; when all the 
scowl of opposition cannot overwhelm it. 

There are some very fine examples of 
such a contest, and of such a triumph, in 
the history of philosophy. In the progress 
of speculation, the doctrine of the occult 
qualities fell into disrepute, and every 
thing that could be associated with such a 
doctrine was disgraced and borne down by 
the authority of the reigning school. When 
Sir Isaac Newton's Theory of Gravitation 
was announced to the world, if it had not 
the persecution of violence, it had at least 
the persecution of contempt to struggle 
with. It had the sound of an occult prin- 
ciple, and it was charged with all the bi- 
gotry and mysticism of the schoolmen. 
This kept it for a time from the chairs and 
universities of Europe, and for years a kind 
of obscure and ignoble sectarianism was 
annexed to that name, which has been 
carried down on such a tide of glory to 
distant ages. Let us think of this, when 
philosophers bring their names and their 
authority to bear upon us, when they pour 
contempt on the truth which we love, and 
on the system which we defend; and as 
they fasten their epithets upon us, let us take 
comfort in thinking that we are under the 
very ordeal through which philosophy her- 
self had to pass, before she achieved the 
most splendid of her victories. 

Sure I am, that the philosophers of that 
age could not have a more impetuous con- 
tempt for the occult principle, which they 
conceived to lie in the doctrine of gravita- 



tion, that many of our present philoso^ 
phers have for the equally occult principle 
which they conceive to lie in the all-sub- 
duing efficacy of the christian faith over 
every mind which embraces it. Each of 
these two doctrines is mighty in its preten- 
sions. The one, asserts a principle to be 
now in operation, and which, reigning over 
the material world, gives harmony to all 
its movements. The other, asserts a prin- 
ciple which it wants to put into operation, to 
apply to all minds, to carry round the 
globe, and to visit with its influence all the 
accessible dominions of the moral world. 
Mighty anticipation ! It promises to rectify 
all disorder, to extirpate all vice, to dry 
up the source of all those sins, and suffer- 
ings, and sorrows, which have spread such 
dismal and unseemly ravages over the face 
of society, to turn every soul from Satan 
unto God ; or, in other words, to annihilate 
that disturbing force which has jarred the 
harmony of the moral world, and make all 
its parts tend obediently to the Deity as its 
centre and its origin. 

But how can this principle be put into 
operation ? How shall it be brought into 
contact with a soul at the distance of a 
thousand miles from the place in which we 
are now standing ? I know no other con- 
ceivable way than sending a messenger in 
possession of the principle himself, and 
able to convey it into the mind of another 
by his powers of communication. The 
precept of "Go and preach the Gospel 
unto every creature," would obtain a very 
partial obedience indeed, if there was no 
actual moving of the preacher from one 
place or neighbourhood to another. Were 
he to stand still he might preach to some 
creatures; he might get a smaller or a 
larger number to assemble around him, and 
it is to be hoped from the stationary pul- 
pits of a christian country the preaching 
of the word has been made to bear with 
efficacy on the souls of multitudes. But in 
•reference to the vast majority of the world, 
that may still be said which was said by 
an apostle in the infant state of our reli- 
gion, how shall they hear without a preach- 
er, and how shall they preach except they 
be sent ? It is the single circumstance of 
being sent, which forms the peculiarity so 
much contended for by one part of the 
British public, and so much resisted by the 
other. The preacher who is so sent is, in 
good Latin, termed a Missionary ; and such 
is the magical power which lies in the very 
sound of this hateful and obnoxious term, 
that it is no sooner uttered than a thousand 
associations of dislike and prejudice start 
into existence. And yet you would think 
it very strange : the term itself is perfectly 
correct in point of etymology. Many of 
those who are so clamorous in their hos- 
tility against it, feel no contempt for the 



MISSIONARY SERMON. 



S33 



mere act of preaching, sit with all decency 
and apparent seriousness under it, and have 
a becoming respect for the character of a 
preacher. Convert the preacher into a Mis- 
sionary, and all you have done is merely to 
graft upon the man's preaching the circum- 
stance of locomotion. How comes it that 
the talent, and the eloquence, and the prin- 
ciple, which appeared so respectable in 
your eyes, so long as they stood still, lose 
all their respectability so soon as they be- 
gin to move ? It is certainly conceivable, 
that the personal qualities which bear with 
salutary influence upon the human beings 
of one place, may pass unimpaired and 
have the same salutary influence upon the 
human beings of another. But this is a 
missionary process, and though unable to 
bring forward any substantial exception 
against the thing, they cannot get the bet- 
ter of the disgust excited by the term. 
They cannot release their understanding 
from the influence of its old associations, 
and these philosophers are repelled from 
truth, and frightened out of the way which 
leads to it, by the bugbear of a name. 

The precept is, ' ; Go and preach the gos- 
pel to every creature under heaven." The 
people I allude to have no particular quar- 
rel with the preach; but they have a mor- 
tal antipathy to the go — and should even 
their own admired preacher offer to go 
himself, or help to send others, he becomes 
a missionary, or the advocate of a mission ; 
and the question of my text is set up in re- 
sistance to the whole scheme, "Can any 
good thing come out of it ?" 

I never felt myself in more favourable 
circumstances for giving an answer to the 
question, than I do at this moment, sur- 
rounded as I am by the members of a So- 
ciety, which has been labouring for up- 
wards of a century in the field of mission- 
ary exertion. It need no longer be taken up 
or treated as a speculative question. The 
question of the text may, in reference to 
the subject now before us, be met imme- 
diately by the answer of the text, " Come 
and see." We call upon you to look to a 
set of actual performances, to examine the 
record of past doings, and like good philo- 
sophers as you are, to make the sober de- 
positions of history carry it over the reve- 
ries of imagination and prejudice. We deal 
in proofs, not in promises ; in practice, not 
in profession; in experience, and not in 
experiment. The Society whose cause I 
am now appointed to plead in your hear- 
ing, is to all intents and purposes a Mis- 
sionary Society. It has a claim to all the 
honour, and must just submit to all the 
disgrace which such a title carries along 
with it. It has been in the habit for many 
years of hiring preachers and teachers, 
and may be convicted times without num- 
ber, of the act of sending them to a dis- 



tance. What the precise distance is I do 
not understand to be of any signification to 
the argument; but even though it should, 
I fear that in the article of distance, our 
Society has at times been as extravagant, 
as many of her neighbours. Her labours 
have been met with in other quarters of 
the world. They have been found among 
the haunts of savages. They have dealt 
with men in the very infancy of social im- 
provement, and their zeal for proselytism 
has far outstript that sober preparatory 
management, which is so much contended 
for. Why, they have carried the Gospel 
message into climes on which Europe had 
never impressed a single trace of her boast- 
ed civilization. They have tried the spe- 
cies in the first stages of its rudeness and 
ferocity, nor did they keep back the offer 
of the Saviour from their souls, till art and 
industry had performed a sufficient part, 
and were made to administer in fuller 
abundance to the wants of their bodies. 
This process, which has been so much in- 
sisted upon, they did not wait for. They 
preached and they prayed at the very out- 
set, and they put into exercise all the wea- 
pons of their spiritual ministry. In a word, 
they have done all the fanatical and of- 
fensive things which have been charged 
upon other missionaries. If there be folly 
in such enterprises as these, our Society 
has the accumulated follies of a whole cen- 
tury upon her forehead. She is among the 
vilest of the vile, and the same overwhelm- 
ing ridicule which has thrown the mantle 
of ignominy over other Societies, will lay 
all her honours and pretensions in the dust. 

We are not afraid of linking the claims 
of our Society with the general merits of 
the Missionary cause. With this cause she 
stands or falls. When the spirit of Mis- 
sionary enterprise is afloat in the country, 
she will not be neglected among the mul- 
tiplicity of other objects. She will not suffer 
from the number or the activity of kindred 
Societies. They who conceive alarm upon 
this ground, have not calculated upon the 
productive powers of benevolence. They 
have not meditated deeply upon the opera- 
tion of this principle, nor do they conceive 
how a general impulse given to the Mis- 
sionary spirit, may work the two fold effect 
of multiplying the number of Societies, and 
of providing for each of them more abun- 
dantly than ever. 

The fact is undeniable. In this corner of 
the empire there is an impetuous and over 
bearing contempt for every thing connected 
with the name of Missionary. The cause 
has l3een outraged by a thousand inde- 
cencies. Every thing like the coolness of 
the philosophical spirit has been banished 
from one side of the controversy, and ail 
the epithets of disgrace, which a perverted 
ingenuity could devise, have been unspa- 



334 



MISSIONARY SERMON. 



ringly lavished on the noblest benefactors 
of the species. We have reason to believe 
that this opposition is not so extensive, nor 
so virulent in England. It is due to certain 
provincial associations, and may be ac- 
counted for. It is most a Scottish pecu- 
liarity ; and while, with our neighbours in 
the South, it is looked upon as a liberal and 
enlightened cause ; as a branch of that very 
principle which abolished the Slave Trade 
of Africa ; as one of the wisest, and likeliest 
experiments, which in this age of benevo- 
lent enterprise, is now making for the in- 
terests of the world ; as a scheme ennobled 
by the patronage of royalty ; supported by 
the contributions of opulence ; sanctified by 
the prayers and the wishes of philanthropy ; 
assisted by men of the first science, and the 
first scholarship ; carrying into execution 
by as hardy adventurers as ever trod the 
desert in quest of novelty ; and enriching 
grammar, geography, and natural know- 
ledge, by the discoveries they are making 
every year, as to the statistics of all countries, 
and the peculiarities of all languages ; while, 
I say, such are the dignified associations 
thrown around the Missionary cause in 
England ; in this country I am sorry to say 
a very different set of collaterals is annexed 
to it. A great proportion of our nobility, 
gentry, and clergy, look upon it as a very 
low and drivelling concern ; as a visionary 
enter prize, and that no good thing can 
come out of it ; as a mere dreg of sectarian- 
ism, and which none but sectarians, or men 
who should have been sectarians, have any 
relish or respect for. The torrent of pre- 
judice runs strongly against it, and the very 
name of Missionary excites the most nau- 
seous antipathy in the hearts of many, who, 
in other departments, approve themselves 
to be able, and candid, and reflecting in- 
quirers. 

We have no doubt that in the course of 
years all this will pass away. But reason 
and experience are slow in their operation ; 
and, in the mean time, we count it fair to 
neutralize, if possible, one prejudice by an- 
other; to school down a Scottish antipathy 
by a Scottish predilection, and to take shel- 
ter from the contempt that is now so wan- 
tonly pouring on the best of causes under 
the respected name of a Society, which has 
earned by the services of a hundred years, 
the fairest claims on the gratitude and vene- 
ration of all our countrymen. Come, and 
see the effect of her Missionary exertions. 
It is palpable and near at hand. It lies within 
the compass of many a summer tour; and 
tell me, ye children of fancy, who expatiate 
with a delighted eye over the wilds of our 
mountain scenery, if it be not a dearer and 
worthier exercise still, to contemplate the 
habits of her once ragged and wandering 
population. What would they have been at 
this moment, had schools, and Bibles, and 



.Ministers, been kept back from them? and 
had the men of a century ago been deterred 
by the flippancies of the present age, from 
the work of planting chapels and seminaries 
in that neglected land 1 The ferocity of their 
ancestors would have come down unsoftened 
and unsubdued to the existing generation. 
The darkening spirit of hostility would still 
have lowered upon us from the North ; and 
these plains, now so peaceful and so happy, 
would have lain open to the fury of merci- 
less invaders. O, ye soft and sentimental 
travellers, who wander so securely over this 
romantic land, you are right to choose the 
season when the angry elements of nature 
are asleep. But what is it that has charmed 
to their long repose the more dreadful ele- 
ments of human passion and human injus- 
tice? What is it that has quelled the bois- 
terous spirit of her natives? — and while her 
torrents roar as fiercely, and her mountain 
brows look as grimly as ever, what is that 
which has thrown so softening an influence 
over the minds and manners of her living 
population? 

I know not that there are several causes; 
but sure I am, that the civilizing influence 
of our Society has had an important share. 
If it be true that our country is indebted to 
her Schools and her Bibles for the most in- 
telligent and virtuous peasantry in Europe, 
let it never be forgotten that the Schools in 
the establishment of our Society are nearly 
equal to one-third of all the parishes in Scot- 
land; that these schools are chiefly to be 
met with in the Highland district; that they 
bear as great a proportion to the Highland 
population, as all our parochial seminaries 
do to all our population ; or, in other words, 
had the local convenience for the attendance 
•of scholars been as great as in other parts 
of the country, the apparatus set a going by 
our Society, for the education of the High- 
land peasantry, would have been as effective 
as the boasted provision of the legislature, 
for the whole of Scotland* 



* This want of local convenience for the attend- 
ance of scholars, is the chief difficulty which our 
Society has to struggle with. The number of 
scholars bears to the population the proportion 
stated in the text; but think of the broad surface 
of a thinly peopled country, intersected with deep 
bays, and crossed in every direction by the natural 
barriers of lakes and mountains. There are only 
two ways in which education can be carried over 
the face of a country so peculiarly formed. The 
first way is, by the multiplication of stationary 
points, from which learning may emanate among 
the children in distinct neighbourhoods. The se- 
cond way is, by the operation of circulating schools, 
which describe at intervals the blank spaces that 
are placed beyond the reach of stationary schools. 
In the present situation of the Highlands, both of 
these methods are putting into operation ; and both 
are entitled to the support and patronage of the 
public. But without wishing to withdraw a single 
farthing from the latter of these methods, no one 



MISSIONARY SERMON. 



335 



I pass over the attempts of our Society to 
introduce the knowledge of the arts and the 
habits of useful industry among them. 1 

will deny that the former, if it could be put into 
operation, is the most effectual, for the full and the 
regular education of the Highlanders. A fixed 
school, operating at all seasons, will do more for its 
neighbourhood than can be done by a moveable 
apparatus set up only at intervals, and transferring 
itself at the end of a few months to other scenes, 
and to other neighbourhoods. Let us aim, there- 
fore, at the multiplication of the fixed points; but 
a mighty sum will be necessary before such a sys- 
tem is completed ; and in the mean time, let not the 
population of the intermediate spaces be abandoned. 
Let the cheapest and readiest expedient that offers 
for their education be adopted, and let the public 
hold forth a liberal hand to the society for circulat- 
ing schools. But what is to hinder us to combine 
with this, the gradual extension of the system of 
fixed and regular education 1 The parochial schools 
furnish us with so many fixed points. The Society 
I am now pleading for, furnish us so many more. 
The very existence of the Gaelic Society, is a 
proof both of the extent and multiplicity of those 
intermediate spaces, over which they are operating 
with so much efficiency. Now the precise ground 
upon which we lay claim to the support of the 
public, is, that we want to scatter a few more 
stationary schools over these intermediate spaces — 
not to supersede the labours of the other Society; 
for the period of time at which this can be possibly 
accomplished, is still at an indefinite distance from 
us — but by narrowing the ground of their opera- 
tion, to enable them to do more complete justice to 
the mighty remainder, on which they have every 
prospect of expatiating for years and generations 
to come ; to make the task more commensurate to 
their means, and enable them to circulate, with 
greater frequency and effect, over those remoter 
tracts, which we have as yet no immediate prospect 
of reaching. 

Who would not give all jealousy to the wind, 
when they see how beautifully situated the opera- 
tions of these two distinct societies are to one an- 
other? Circulate, with all possible activity, among 
the interjacent spaces on the one hand, but do not 
give up the prospect of permanent establishments 
in these spaces on the other. The last is the pro- 
vince of our Society, and is advanced as our distinct 
claim upon the generosity of the public. We lay 
claim to this generosity; and what is more, we 
stand in need of it. It is not true that we do not 
teach the Gaelic to our Highland scholars. The in- 
structions given to every Schoolmaster, and the 
Reports of the committees of Presbyteries, upon 
the examination of scholars, form a distinct refuta- 
tion to the impression which has got abroad upon 
this subject. Strange that this Society should be 
charged with a hostility to Gaelic education, to 
whose exertion and whose patronage the High- 
lands of Scotland are indebted for the existence of 
the Gaelic Bible. On the other hand, it is not true 
that our funds are so ample as to make us inde- 
pendent of any appeals that can be made to the 
generosity of the public. Our expenditure is at this 
moment pressing upon our resources. We have 
done much. There are hundreds of Schools regu- 
larly supported by us ; but we appeal to the very 
existence of other Societies for the fact, that we 
have still much to do. We appeal to the press of 
applications for more Schools, and more School- 
masters, and more salaries. These applications 



have not room for every thing. And to re- 
claim, if possible, the prejudices of those 
who I fear have little sympathy with the 
wants of the ever-during soul, I have been 
lingering all the while upon the inferior 
ground of temporal advantage. But I may 
detain you for hours upon this ground, and 
after all I have said about a more peaceful 
neighbourhood, and a more civilized pea- 
santry, I may positively have said nothing 
upon the essential merits of the cause. I 
can conceive the wish of his present Ma- 
jesty, that every one in his dominions may 
be able to read the Bible, to meet an echo 
in every bosom. But why? Because the 
very habit of reading implies a more intel- 
ligent people, and must stand associated in 
every mind with habits of order, and com- 
fort, and decency. But separate these from 
the religious principle, and what are they? 
At the very best they are the virtues of a 
life; their office is to scatter a few fleeting 
joys over a short and uncertain pilgrimage, 
and to deck a temporary scene with bless- 
ings, which are to perish and be forgotten. 
No ! In our attempts to carry into effect the 
principle of being all things to all men, let 
us never exalt that which is subordinate; 
let us never give up our reckoning upon 
eternity, or be ashamed to own it as our 
sentiment, that though schools were to mul- 
tiply, though Missionaries were to labour, 
and all the decencies and accomplishments 
of social life were to follow in their train, 
the great object would still be unattained, so 
long as the things of the Holy Spirit were 
unrelished and undiscerned among them, 
and they wanted that knowledge of God and 
of Jesus Christ, which is life everlasting. 
This is the ground upon which every Chris- 
tian will rest the vindication of every Mis- 
sionary enterprise ; and this is the ground 
upon which he may expect to be abandoned 
by the infidel, who laughs at piety; or the 
lukewarm believer, who dreads to be laughed 
at for the extravagance to which he carries 
it. The Christian is not for giving up the 
social virtues; but the open enemy and the 
cold friend of the gospel are for giving up 
piety; and while they garnish all that is 
right and amiable in humanity, with the 
unsubstantial praises of their eloquence, they 
pour contempt upon that very principle 
which forms our best security for the ex- 
istence of virtue in the world. We say no- 
thing that can degrade the social virtues in 
the estimation of men; but by making them 
part of religion, we exalt them above all 
that poet or moralist can do for them. We 
give them God for their object, and for their 
end the grandeur of eternity. No ! It is not 



come upon us every year, and the painful necessity 
we are under of refusing many of them, proves to 
a demonstration, that the want of pecuniary aid is 
the only limit to the usefulness of our exertions. 



336 



MISSIONARY SERMON. 



the Christian who is the enemy of social 
virtue; it is he who sighs in all the ecstacy 
of sentiment over it, at the very time that 
he is digging away its foundation, and 
wreaking on that piety which is its princi- 
ple, the cruelty of his scorn. 

It is very well in its place to urge the 
civilizing influence of a Missionary Society. 
But this is not the main object of such an in- 
stitution. It is not the end. It is only the 
accompaniment. It is a never-failing colla- 
teral, and may be used as a lawful instru- 
ment in fighting the battles of the Mission- 
ary cause. It is right enough to contest it 
with our enemies at every one point of 
advantage ; and for this purpose to descend, 
if necessary, to the very ground on which 
they have posted themselves. But, when 
so engaged, let us never forget the main 
elements of our business; for there is a 
danger, that when turning the eye of our 
antagonist to the lovely picture of peace, 
and industry and cultivation, raised by 
many a Christian Missionary, among the 
wilds of heathenism, we turn it away from 
the very marrow and substance of our un- 
dertaking; the great aim of which is to 
preach Christ to sinners, and to rear human 
souls to a beauteous and never-fading im- 
mortality. 

The wish of our pious and patriotic king, 
that every man in his dominions might be 
able to read the Bible, has circulated 
through the land. It has been commented 
upon with eloquence; and we doubt not, 
that something like the glow of a virtuous 
sensibility has been awakened by it. But 
let us never forget that in the breasts of 
many, all this may be little better than a 
mere theatrical emotion. Give me the man 
who is in the daily habit of opening his 
Bible, who willingly puts himself into the 
attitude of a little child when he reads it. 
and casts an unshrinking eye over its in- 
formation and its testimony. This is the 
way of giving effect and consistency to their 
boasted admiration of the royal sentiment. 
The mere admiration in itself indicates no- 
thing. It may be as little connected with 
the sturdiness of principle as the finery of 
any poetical delusion. O ! it is easy to 
combine a vague and general testimony to 
the Bible, with a disgusted feeling of anti- 
pathy to the methodism of its actual con- 
tents ; and thousands can profess to make it 
their rallying point, who pour contempt 
upon its doctrines, and give the lie to the 
faithfulness of its sayings. 

Let us put you to the trial. The Bible 
tells us, that " he who believeth not the Son 
shall not see life, but the wrath of God 
abideth on him." It calls upon us "to 
preach the gospel to every creature," that 
every creature may believe it ; for he who 
so "believeth shall not perish, but have 
everlasting life." Such is the mighty dif- 



ference between believing and not believ- 
ing. It makes all the difference between 
hell and heaven. He who believeth, hath 
passed from death even unto life ; and the 
errand of the Missionary is to carry these 
overtures to the men of all languages, and 
all countries; that he may prevail upon 
them to make this transition. Some reject 
his overtures, and to them the gospel is the 
savour of death unto death. Others em- 
brace them, and to them the gospel is the 
savour of life unto life. Whatever be his 
reception, he counts it his duty and his bu- 
siness to preach the gospel ; and if he get 
some to hear, and others to forbear, he just 
fares as the Apostles did before him. Now, 
my brethren, have we got among the sub- 
stantial realities of the Missionary cause. 
We have carried you forward from the ac- 
cessaries to the radical elements of the bu- 
siness ; and if you, offended at the hardness 
of these sayings, feel as if now we had got 
within the confines of methodism ; then 
know that this feeling arose in your minds 
at the very moment that we got within the 
four corners of the Bible ; and your fancied 
admiration of this book, however exquisite 
ly felt, or eloquently uttered, is nothing bet 
ter than the wretched flummery of a sickly 
and deceitful imagination. 

Our venerable Society has given the 
sanction of her example to the best and the 
dearest objects of Missionaries. Like others 
she has kept a wakeful eye over all that 
could contribute to the interests of the 
species. She has given encouragement to 
art and to industry, but she has never been 
diverted from the religion of a people as the 
chief aim of all her undertakings. To this 
end she has multiplied schools, and made 
the reading of the Scriptures the main ac- 
quirement of her scholars. The Bible is her 
school-book, and it is to her that the 
Highlands of Scotland owe the transla- 
tion of the sacred record into their own 
tongue. She sends preachers as well as 
teachers among them. As she has made 
the reading of the word a practicable ac - 
quirement, so she has made the hearing of 
the word an accessible privilege. In short, 
she has set up what may be called a chris- 
tian apparatus in many districts, which the 
Legislature of the country had left un- 
provided for. She is filling up the blanks 
which, among the scattered and extended 
parishes of the North, occur so frequently 
over the broad surface of a thinly peopled 
country. She has come in contact with 
those remoter groups and hamlets, which 
the influence of the Establishment did not 
reach. And, she has multiplied her en- 
dowments at such a rate, that very many 
people have got christian instruction in its 
different branches as nearly, and as effec- 
tively to bear upon them, as in the more 
favoured districts of the land. 



MISSIONARY SERMON. 



337 



When a wealthy native of a Highland 
parish, penetrated with a feeling of the 
wants of his neighbours, erects a chapel, or 
endows a seminary among them, his bene- 
volence is felt and acknowledged by all ; 
and I am not aware of a single association 
which can disturb our moral estimate of 
such a proceeding, or restrain the fulness 
of that testimony which is due to it. But 
should an individual, at a distance from 
the parish in question, do the same thing ; 
should he, with no natural claim upon him, 
and without the stimulus of any of those 
affections, which the mere circumstance 
of vicinity is fitted to inspire ; should he, I 
say, merely upon a moving representation 
of their necessities, devote his wealth to the 
same cause ; what influence ought this to 
have upon our estimate of his character ? 
Why, in all fairness, it should just lead us 
to infer a stronger degree of the principle 
of philanthropy, a principle which in his 
case was unaided by any local influence 
whatever, and which urged him to exer- 
tion, and to sacrifice, in the face of an obsta- 
cle which the other had not to contend with 
— the obstacle of distance. Now, what one 
individual may be conceived to do for one 
parish, a number of individuals may do for 
a number of parishes. They may form into 
a society, and combine their energies and 
their means for the benefit of the whole 
country, and should that country lie at a 
distance, the only way in which it affects 
our estimate of their exertions, is by lead- 
ing us to see in them a stronger principle 
of attachment to the species, and a more de- 
termined zeal for the object of their bene- 
volence, in spite of the additional difficulties 
with which it is encumbered. 

Now the principle does not stop here. 
In the instance before us, it has been car- 
ried from the metropolis of Scotland to the 
distance of her Northern extremities. But 
tell me, why it might not be carried round 
the globe. This very Society has carried 
it over the Atlantic, and the very apparatus 
which she has planted in the Highlands 
and islands of our country, she has set a 
going more than once in the wilds of 
America. The very discipline which she 
has applied to her own population, she has 
brought to bear on human beings in other 
quarters of the world. She has wrought 
with the same instruments upon the same 
materials, and as in sound philosophy it ought 
to have been expected, she has obtained the 
same result — a christian people rejoicing in 
the faith of Jesus, and ripening for heaven, by 
a daily progress upon earth in the graces 
and accomplishments of the gospel. I have 
yet to learn what that is which should make 
the same teaching, and the same Bible, ap- 
plicable to one part of the species, and not 
applicable to another. I am not aware of 
a single principle in the philosophy of man, 



which points to such a distinction ; nor do I 
know a single category in the science of 
human nature, which can assist me in draw- 
ing the landmark between those to whom 
Christianity may be given, and those who 
are unworthy or unfit for the participation 
of its blessings. I have been among illiterate 
peasantry, and I have marked how apt they 
were in their narrow field of observation, 
to cherish a kind of malignant contempt for 
the men of another shire, or another coun- 
try. I have heard of barbarians, and of 
their insolent disdain for foreigners. I have 
read of Jews, and of their unsocial and ex- 
cluding prejudices. But I always looked 
upon these as the jealousies of ignorance, 
which science and observation had the 
effect of doing away, and that the accom- 
plished traveller, liberalized by frequent in- 
tercourse with the men of other countries, 
saw through the vanity of all these preju- 
dices, and disowned them. What the man 
of liberal philosophy is in sentiment, the 
Missionary is in practice. He sees in every 
man a partaker of his own nature, and a 
brother of his own species. He contem- 
plates the human mind in the generality of 
its great elements. He enters upon the wide 
field of benevolence, and disdains those 
geographical barriers, by which little men 
would shut out one half of the species from 
the kind offices of the other. His business 
is with man, and let his localities be what 
they may, enough for his large and noble 
heart, that he is bone of the same bone. 
To get at him, he will shun no danger, he 
will shrink from no privation, he will spare 
himself no fatigue, he will brave every ele- 
ment of heaven, he will hazard the extremi- 
ties of every clime, he will cross seas, and 
work his persevering way through the briers 
and thickets of the wilderness. In perils 
of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils 
by the heathen, in weariness and painful- 
ness, he seeks after him. The cast and the 
colour are nothing to the comprehensive 
eye of a Missionary. His is the broad prin- 
ciple of good will to the children of men. 
His doings are with the species, and over- 
looking all the accidents of climate, or of 
country, enough for him, if the indivi- 
dual he is in quest of be a man — a brother 
of the same nature — with a body which a 
few years will bring to the grave, and a 
spirit that returns to the God who gave it. 

But this man of large and liberal princi- 
ples is a Missionary ; and this is enough to 
put to flight all admiration of him, and of 
his doings. I forbear to#xpatiate ; but sure 
I am that certain philosophers of the day, 
and certain fanatics of the day, should be 
made to change places ; if those only are the 
genuine philosophers who keep to the prin- 
ciples in spite of names, and those only the 
genuine fanatics who are ruled by names in- 
stead of principles. 



338 



MISSIONARY SERMON. 



The Society for propagating Christian 
knowledge in the Highlands and Islands 
of Scotland, has every claim upon a reli- 
gious public ; and I trust that those claims 
will not be forgotten among the multiplicity 
of laudable and important objects, which 
are now afloat in this age of benevolent 
enterprise. She has all the experience and 
respectability and tried usefulness of age ; 
may she have none of the infirmities of age. 
May she have nothing either of the rust or 
the indolence of an establishment about 
her. Resting on the consciousness of her 
own righteous and strongly supported 
cause ; may she look on the operations of 
other societies with complacency, and be 
jealous of none of them. She confers with 
them upon their common objects ; she as- 
sists them with her experience, and when, 
struggling with difficulties, they make 
their appeal to the generosity of the chris- 
tian world, she nobly leads the way, and 



imparts to them with liberal hand, out of 
her own revenue. She has conferred last- 
ing obligations upon the Missionary cause. 
She spreads over it the shelter of her vene- 
rable name, and by the answer of " Come 
and see," to those who ask if any good 
thing can come out of it, she gives a prac- 
tical refutation to the reasonings of all its 
adversaries. She redeems the best of causes 
from the unmerited contempt under which 
it labours, and she will be repaid. The re- 
ligious public will not be backward to own 
the obligation. We are aware of the pre- 
valence of the Missionary spirit, and of the 
many useful directions in which it is now 
operating. But we are not afraid of the 
public being carried away from us. We 
know that there is room far all, that 
there are funds for all ; and our policy is 
not to repress, but to excite the Mission- 
ary spirit, and then there will be a heart 
for all. 



A SERMON, 

DELIVERED IN THE TRON CHURCH, GLASGOW, ON WEDNESDAY, NOV. 19, 1817. 
THE DAY OF THE FUNERAL OF HER ROYAL HIGHNESS, 

THE 

PRINCESS CHARLOTTE OF WALES. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

The following Sermon is the fruit of a very hurried and unlooked-for exer- 
tion — and never was there any publication brought forward under circumstances 
of greater reluctancy, and with a more honest feeling of unpreparedness, on the 
part of the author. The truth is, that he was at a great distance from home, 
when the urgency of the public demand for his personal appearance on the nine- 
teenth of November, reached him, and that so late, that he had no other resource 
than to write for the pulpit during the intervals, and after the exhaustion of a 
very rapid and fatiguing journey. It is true that he might revise. But to revise 
such a composition, would be to re-make it ; and he has chosen rather to bring it 
forward, and that as nearly as possible, in the literal terms of its delivery. 

But, it may be asked, if so unfit for the public eye, why make it public ? It may 
be thought by many, that the avowal is not a wise one. But wisdom ought never 
to be held in reverence separately from truth ; and it would be disguising the 
real motive, were it concealed, that a very perverse misconception which has 
gone abroad respecting one passage of the Sermon, and which has found its way 
into many of the newspapers, is the real and impelling cause of the step that has 
been taken ; and that, had it not been for the spread of such a misconception, 
there never would have been obtruded on the public, a performance written on a 
call of urgent necessity, and most assuredly without the slightest anticipation of 
authorship. 

But, it may be said, does not such a measure as this bring the pulpit into a state 
of the most degrading subordination to the diurnal press, since there is not a single 
sermon which cannot be so reported, as, without the literality of direct falsehood, 
to convey through the whole country, all the injuries of a substantial misrepre- 
sentation ; and if a minister should condescend publicly to notice every such ran- 
dom and ephemeral statement, he might thereby incessantly involve himself in 
the most helpless and harassing of all controversy ? 

Now, in opposition to this, let it be observed, that a person placed in this diffi- 
cult and disagreeable predicament, may advert for once to such a provocation, and 
that for the express purpose, that he may never have to do it again. He may 
count it enough to make one decisive exposure of the injustice which can be done 
in this way to a public instructor, and then hold himself acquitted of every similar 
attempt in all time coming. He thereby raises a sort of abiding or monumental 
antidote, which may serve to neutralize the mischief of any future attack, or fu- 
ture insinuation. By this one act, though he may not silence the obloquies of the 
daily press, he has at least purchased for himself the privilege of standing unmoved 
by all the mistakes, or by all the malignities which may proceed from it. 

Yet, it is no more than justice to a numerous and very important class of writers, 
to state it as our conviction of the great majority of them, that they feel the dig- 

i 839 



340 



SERMON ON THE DEATH OF THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE, 



nity and responsibility of their office, and hold it to be the highest point of pro- 
fessional honour, ever to maintain the most gentlemanly avoidance of all that is 
calculated to wound the feelings of an unoffending individual. 

There is one temptation, however, to which the editors of this department of 
literature are peculiarly liable, which may be briefly adverted to, and the influ- 
ence of which, may be observed to extend even to a higher class of journalists. 
There is an eagernesss to transmute every thing into metal of their own peculiar 
currency — there is an extreme avidity to lay hold of every utterance, and to send 
it abroad, tinged with the colouring of their own party-— there is a ravenous de- 
sire of approbation, extending itself to every possible occurrence, and to every one 
individual whom they would like to enlist under the banners of their own parti- 
sanship, which, for their own credit, they would be more careful to repress, did 
they perceive with sufficient force, and sufficient distinctness, that it makes them 
look more like desperadoes of a sinking cause, than the liberal and honest ex- 
pounders of public politics and literature, which claim so respectable a portion of 
the intelligence of the country. 

The writer of this sermon has only to add, that he does not know how a sorer 
imputation could have been devised agajnst the heart and the principles of a clergy- 
man, than that, on the tender and hallowed day of a nation's repose from all the 
sordidness and all the irritations of party, he should have made the pulpit a vehicle 
of invective against any administration ; or that, after mingling his tears with those 
of his people, over the untimely death of one so dear to us, he should have found 
room for any thing else than those lessons of general Christianity, by which an 
unsparing reproof is ministered to impiety, in whatever quarter it may be found — 
even that impiety which wears the very same features, and offers itself in the very 
same aspect, under all administrations. 



SERMON. 

" For when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness." 

Isaiah xxvi. 9. 



I am sorry that I shall not be able to ex- 
tend the application of this text beyond its 
more direct and immediate bearing on that 
event on which we are now met to mingle 
our regrets, and our sensibilities, and our 
prayers — that, occupied as we all are with 
the mournful circumstance that has bereft 
"our country of one of its brightest anticipa- 
tions, I shall not be able to clear my way 
to the accomplishment of what is, strictly 
speaking, the congregational object of an 
address from the pulpit, which ought, in 
every possible case, to be an address to the 
conscience — that, therefore, instead of the 
-concerns of personal Christianity, which, 
under my present text, I might, if I had 
space for it, press home upon the attention 
of my hearers, I shall be under the necessi- 
ty of restricting myself to that more partial 
application of the text which relates to the 
matters of public Christianity. It is upon 
this account, as well as upon others, that I 
rejoice in the present appointment, for the 
improvement of that sad and sudden visita- 
tion, which has so desolated the hearts and 
the hopes of a whole people. I therefore 
feel more freedom in coming forward with 



such remarks as, to the eyes of many, may 
wear a more public and even political com- 
plexion, than is altogether suited to the 
ministrations of the Sabbath. And yet I 
cannot but advert, and that in such terms 
of reproof as I think to be most truly appli- 
cable, to another set of men, whose taste for 
preaching is very much confined to these 
great and national occasions — who, habitu- 
ally absent from church on the Sabbath, are 
yet observed, and that most prominently, to 
come together in eager and clustering at- 
tendance, on some interesting case of pathos 
or of politics — who in this way obtrude upon 
the general notice, their loyalty to an earthly 
sovereign, while, in reference to their Lord 
and Master, Jesus Christ, they scandalize 
all that is Christian in the general feeling, 
by their manifest contempt for him and for 
his ordinances — who look for the ready 
compliance of ministers, in all that can gra- 
tify their inclinations for pageantry, while 
for the real, effective, and only important 
business of ministers, they have just as little 
reverence as if it were all a matter of hollow 
and insignificant parade. It is right to share 
in the triumphs of successful, and to shed 



SERMON ON THE DEATH OF 



THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. 



341 



the tears of afflicted, patriotism. But it is 
also right to estimate according to its true 
character, the patriotism of those who are 
never known to offer one homage to Chris- 
tianity, except when it is associated with 
the affairs of state, or with the wishes, and 
the commands, and the expectations of 
statesmen. 

But the frivolous and altogether despica- 
ble taste of the men to whom I am alluding, 
must be entirely separated from such an oc- 
casion as the present. For, in truth, there 
never was an occasion of such magnitude, 
and at the same time of such peculiarity. 
There never was an occasion on which a 
matter of deep political interest was so 
blended and mixed up with matter of very 
deep and affecting tenderness. It does not 
wear the aspect of an affair of politics at all, 
but of an affair of the heart ; and the novel 
exhibition is now offered, of all party-irrita- 
tions merging into one common and over- 
whelming sensibility. Oh ! how it tends to 
quiet the agitations of every earthly interest 
and earthly passion, when Death steps for- 
ward and demonstrates the littleness of 
them all — when he stamps a character of 
such affecting insignificance on all that we 
are contending for — when, as if to make 
known the greatness of his power in the 
sight of a whole country, he stalks in 
ghastly triumph over the might and the 
grandeur of its most august family, and 
singling out that member of it on whom 
the dearest hopes and the gayest visions of 
the people were suspended, he, by one fatal 
and resistless blow, sends abroad the fame 
of his victory and his strength, throughout 
the wide extent of an afflicted nation. He has 
indeed put a cruel and impressive mockery 
on all the glories of mortality. A few days 
ago, all looked so full of life, and promise, 
and security — when we read of the bustle 
of the great preparation — and were told of 
the skill and the talent that were pressed 
into the service — and heard of the goodly 
attendance of the most eminent in the na- 
tion — and how officers of state, and the 
titled dignitaries of the land, were charioted 
in splendour to the scene of expectation, as 
to the joys of an approaching holiday — yes, 
and we were told too, that the bells of the 
surrounding villages were all in readiness 
for the merry peal of gratulation, and that 
the expectant metropolis of our empire, on 
tiptoe for the announcement of her future 
monarch, had her winged couriers of des- 
patch to speed the welcome message to the 
ears of her citizens, and that from her an 
embassy of gladness was to travel over all 
the provinces of the land ; and the country, 
forgetful of all that she had suffered, was at 
length to offer the spectacle of one wide and 
rejoicing jubilee. O Death! thou hast in- 
deed chosen the time and the victim, for 
demonstrating the grim ascendancy of thy 



power over all the hopes and fortunes o* 
our species ! — Our blooming Princess, whom 
fancy had decked with the coronet of these 
realms, and under whose gentle sway all 
bade so fair for the good and the peace of 
our nation, has he placed upon her bier ! 
And, as if to fill up the measure of his tri- 
umph, has he laid by her side, that babe, 
who, but for him, might have been the mo- 
narch of a future generation; and he has 
done that, which by no single achievement 
he could otherwise have accomplished — he 
has sent forth over the whole of our land, 
the gloom of such a bereavement as cannot 
be replaced by any living descendant of 
royalty — he has broken the direct succes- 
sion of the monarchy of England — by one 
and the same disaster, has he wakened up 
the public anxieties of the country, and sent 
a pang as acute as that of the most wofui 
domestic visitation, into the heart of each 
of its families. 

In the prosecution of the following dis- 
course, as I have already stated, I shall sa- 
tisfy myself with a very limited application 
of the text. I shall, in the first place, offer 
a few remarks on that branch of the righ- 
teousness of practical Christianity, which 
consists in the duty that subjects owe to 
their governors. And in the second place, 
I shall attempt to improve the present great 
national disaster, to the object of impressing 
upon you, that, under all our difficulties and 
all our fears, it is the righteousness of the 
people alone which will exalt and perpetuate 
the nation ; and that therefore, if this great 
interest be neglected, the country, instead 
of reaping improvement from the. judgments 
of God, is in imminent danger of being 
utterly overwhelmed by them. 

I. But here let me attempt the difficult 
task of rightly dividing the Word of truth — 
and premise this head of discourse, by ad- 
mitting that I know nothing more hateful 
than the crouching spirit of servility. I 
know not a single class of men more un- 
worthy of reverence, than the base and in- 
terested minions of a court. I know not a 
set of pretenders who more amply deserve 
to be held out to the chastisement of public 
scorn, than they who, under the guise of 
public principle, are only aiming at per- 
sonal aggrandizement. This is one corrup- 
tion. But let us not forget that there is an- 
other — even a spurious patriotism which 
would proscribe loyalty as one of the vir- 
tues altogether. Now, I cannot open my 
Bible, without learning that loyalty is one 
branch of the righteousness of practical 
Christianity. — I am not seeking to please 
men, but God, when I repeat his words in 
your hearing— that you should honour the 
King— that you should obey Magistrates— 
that you should meddle not with those who 
are given to change — that you should be 
subject to principalities and powers— that 



3i"3 



SERMON ON THE DEATH OE 



THE TRINCESS CHARLOTTE. 



you should lead a quiet and peaceable life 
in all godliness and honesty. This, then, is 
a part of the righteousness which it is our 
business to teach, and sure I am that, it is a 
part of righteousness which the judgment 
now dealt out to us, should, of all others, 
dispose you to learn. I know not a virtue 
more in harmony with the present feelings, 
and afflictions, and circumstances of the 
country, than that of a steadfast and deter- 
mined loyalty. The time has been, when 
such an event as the one that we are now 
assembled to deplore, would have put every 
restless spirit into motion, and set a guilty 
ambition upon its murderous devices, and 
brought, powerful pretenders with their op- 
posing hosts of vassalage into the field, and 
enlisted towns and families under the rival 
banners of a most destructive fray of con- 
tention, and thus have broken up the whole 
peace and confidence of society. Let us 
bless God that, these days of barbarism are 
now gone by. But the vessel of the state is 
still exposed to many agitations. The sea 
of politics is a sea of storms, on which the 
gale of human passions would make her 
founder, were it not for the guidance of hu- 
man principle; and, therefore, the truest 
policy of a nation is to christianize her 
subjects, and to disseminate among them 
the influence of religion. The most skilful 
arrangement for rightly governing a state, 
is to scatter among the governed, not the 
terrors of power — not. the threats of jealous 
and alarmed authority — not the demonstra- 
tions of sure and ready vengeance held 
forth by the rigour of an offended law. 
These may, at times, be imperiously called 
for. But a permanent security against, the 
wild outbreakings of turbulence and disas- 
ter, is only to be attained by diffusing the 
lessons of the Gospel throughout the great 
mass of our population — even those lessons 
which are utterly and diametrically at anti- 
podes with all that is criminal and wrong 
in the Spirit of political disaffection. The 
only radical counteraction to this evil is to 
be found in the spirit of Christianity ; and 
though animated by such a spirit, a man 
may put on the intrepidity of one of the old 
prophets, and denounce even in the ear of 
royalty the profligacies which may disgrace 
or deform it— though animated by such a 
spirit, he may lift his protesting voice in the 
face of an unchristian magistracy, and tell 
them of their errors — though animated by 
such a spirit, he, to avoid every appearance 
of evil, will neither stoop to the flattery of 
power, nor to the solicitations of patronage 
— and though all this may bear, to the su- 
perficial eye, a hard, and repulsive, and hos- 
tile aspect, towards the established dignities 
of the land — yet forget not, that if a real 
and honest principle of Christianity lie at 
the root, of this spirit, there exists within 
the bosom of such a man, a foundation of 



principle, on which all the lessons of Chris- 
tianity will rise into visible and consistent 
exemplification. And it is he, and such as 
he, w ho will turn out to be the salvation of 
the country, when the hour of her threat- 
ened danger is approaching — and it is just 
in proportion as )ou spread and multiply 
such a character, that, you raise within the 
bosom of the nation, the best security 
against all her Unci nat ions — and, as in every 
other department of human concerns, so 
will it be found, that, in this particular de- 
partment, Christians are the salt, of the 
earth, and Christianity the most copious 
and emanating fountain of all the guardian 
virtues of peace, and order, and patriotism. 

The judgment under which we now la- 
bour, supplies, I think, one touching, and, 
to every good and christian mind, one 
powerful argument of loyalty. It is the 
distant c of the prince from his people which 
feeds the political jealousy of the latter, and 
which, by removing the former to a height 
of inaccessible grandeur, places him, as it 
were, beyond the reach of their sympathies. 
Much of the political rancour, which festers, 
and agitates, and makes such a tremendous 
appearance of noise and of hostility in our 
land, is due to the aggraA r ating power of 
distance. If two of the deadliest political 
antagonists in our country, who abuse, and 
vilify, and pour forth their stormy elo- 
quence on each other, whether in parlia- 
ment or from the press, were actually to 
come into such familiar and personal con- 
tact, as would infuse into their controversy 
the sweetening of mere acquaintanceship, 
this very circumstance would disarm and 
do away almost all their violence. The 
truth is, that, when one man rails against 
another across the table of a legislative as- 
sembly, or when he works up his ferment- 
ing imagination, and pens his virulent sen- 
tences against another, in the retirement of 
a closet — he is fight ing against a man at a 
distance — he is exhausting his strength 
against an enemy whom he does not know 
— he is swelling into indignation, and into 
all the movements of what he thinks right 
and generous principle, against a chimera 
of his own apprehension ; and a similar re- 
action comes back upon him from the quar- 
ter that he has assailed, and thus the con- 
troversy thickens, and the delusion every 
day gets more impenetrable, and the dis- 
tance is ever widening, and the breach is 
always becoming more hopeless and more 
irreparable ; and all this between two men, 
who, if they had been in such accidental 
circumstances of juxta-position as could 
have let them a little move into one another's 
feelings, and to one another's sympathies, 
would at. least have had all the asperities of 
their difference smoothed away by the mere 
softenings and kindlinesses of ordinary hu- 
man intercourse. 



SERMON ON THE DEATH OF THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. 



343 



Now let me apply this remark to the mu- 
tual state of sentiment which obtains be- 
tween the different orders of the community. 
Among the rich, there is apt at times to 
rankle an injurious and unworthy impres- 
sion of the poor — and just because these 
poor stand at a distance from them — just 
because they come not into contact with 
that which would draw them out into cour- 
teousness to their persons, and in benevo- 
lent attentions to their families. Among 
the poor, on the other hand, there is often a 
disdainful suspicion of the wealthy, as if 
they were actuated by a proud indifference to 
them and to their concerns, and, as if they 
were placed away from them at so distant 
and lofty an elevation as not to require the 
exercise of any of those cordialities, which 
are ever sure to spring in the bosom of man 
to man, when they come to know each 
other, and to have the actual sight of each 
other. But let any accident place an indi- 
vidual of the higher before the eyes of the 
lower order, on the ground of their common 
humanity — let the latter be made to see that 
the former are akin to themselves in all the 
sufferings and in all the sensibilities of our 
common inheritance — let, for example, the 
greatest chieftain of the territory die, and 
the report of his weeping children, or of his 
distracted widow, be sent through the neigh- 
bourhood — or let an infant of his family be 
in suffering, and the mothers of the humble 
vicinity be run to for counsel and assist- 
ance — or in any other way let the rich, in- 
stead of being viewed by their inferiors 
through the dim and distant medium of that 
fancied interval which separates the ranks 
of society, be seen as heirs of the same 
frailty, and as dependent on the same sym- 
pathies with themselves — and at that mo- 
ment, all the floodgates of honest sym- 
pathy will be opened — and the lowest ser- 
vants of the establishment will join in the 
cry of distress which has come upon their 
family — and the neighbouring cottagers, to 
share in their grief, have only to recognise 
them as the partakers of one nature, and to 
perceive an assimilation of feelings and of 
circumstances between them. 

Let me further apply this to the sons and 
the daughters of royalty. The truth is, 
that they appear to the public eye as stalk- 
ing on a platform so highly elevated above 
the general level of society, that it removes 
them, as it were, from all the ordinary 
sympathies of our nature. And though we 
read at times of their galas, and their birth- 
| days, and their drawing-rooms, there is 
nothing in all this to attach us to their in- 
terests and their feelings, as the inhabitants 
of a familiar home— as the members of an 
affectionate family. Surrounded as they 
are with the glare of a splendid notoriety, 
we scarcely recognize them as men and as 
women, who can rejoice, and weep, and 



pine with disease, and taste the sufferings 
of mortality, and be oppressed with anguish, 
and love with tenderness, and experience 
in their bosoms the same movements of 
grief or of affection that we do ourselves. 
And thus it is, that they labour under a 
real and heavy disadvantage. There is not 
in their case, the counteraction of that 
kindly influence, to alleviate the weight or 
the malignity of prejudice, which men of a 
humbler station are ever sure to enjoy. In the 
case of a man whose name is hardly known 
beyond the limits of his personal acquain- 
tance, the tale of calumny that is raised 
against him extends not far beyond these 
limits ; and, therefore, wherever it is heard, 
it meets with a something to blunt and to 
soften it, in those very cordialities which 
the familiar exhibition of him as a brother 
of our common nature is fitted to awaken. 
But it is not so with those in the elevated 
walks of society. Their names are familiar 
where their persons are unknown; and 
whatever malignity may attach to the one, 
circulates abroad, and is spread far beyond 
the limits of their possible intercourse 
with human beings, and meets with no 
kindly counteraction from our acquaintance 
with the other. And this may explain 
how it is, that the same exalted person- 
age may, at one and the same time, be suf- 
fering under a load of most unmerited ob- 
loquy from the wide and the general pub- 
lic, and be to all his familiar domestics an 
object of the most enthusiastic devotedness 
and regard. 

Now, if through an accidental opening, 
the public should be favoured with a do- 
mestic exhibition — if, by some overpower- 
ing visitation of Providence upon an illus- 
trious family, the members of it should come 
to be recognised as the partakers of one 
common humanity with ourselves — if, in- 
stead of beholding them in their gorgeous- 
ness as princes, we look to them in their 
natural evolution of their sensibilities as 
men — if the stately palace should be turned 
into a house of mourning — in one word, if 
death should do what he has already done, 
he has met the Princess of England in the 
prime and promise of her days, and as she 
was moving onward on her march to a he- 
reditary throne, he has laid her at his feet. 
Ah! my brethren, when the imagination 
dwells on that bed where the remains of 
departed youth and departed infancy are 
lying — when, instead of crowns and cano- 
pies of grandeur, it looks to the forlorn hus- 
band, and the weeping father, and the hu- 
man feelings which agitate their bosom, and 
the human tears which flow down their 
cheeks, and all such symptoms of deep af- 
fliction as bespeak the workings of suffer- 
ing and dejected nature — what ought to be, 
and what actually is, the feeling of the 
country at so sad an exhibition 1 It is just 



344 



ON THE DEATH OF THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. 



the feeling of the domestics and the labour- 
ers at Claremont. All is soft and tender as 
womanhood. Nor is there a peasant in our 
land, who is not touched to the very heart 
when he thinks of the unhappy Stranger 
who is now spending his days in grief and 
nights in sleeplessness— as he mourns alone 
in his darkened chamber, and refuses to be 
comforted — as he turns in vain for rest to 
his troubled feelings, and cannot find it — as 
he gazes on the memorials of an affection 
that blessed the brightest, happiest, shortest 
year of his existence — as he looks back on 
the endearments of the bygone months, and 
the thought that they have for ever fleeted 
away from him, turns all to agony — as he 
looks forward on the blighted prospect of 
this world's pilgrimage, and feels that all 
which bound him to existence, is now torn 
irretrievably away from him ! There is not 
a British heart that does not feel to this in- 
teresting visitor, all the force and all the 
tenderness of a most affecting relationship ; 
and go where he may, will he ever be recog- 
nised and cherished as a much loved mem- 
ber of the British family. 

It is in this way that through the avenue 
of a nation's tenderness, we can estimate 
the strength and the steadfastness of a na- 
tion's loyalty. On minor questions of the 
constitution we may storm and rave, and 
look at each other a little ferociously — and 
it was by some such appearance as this, that 
he, who in the days of his strength, was the 
foulest and most formidable of all our ene- 
mies, said of the country in which we live, 
that, torn by factions, it was going rapidly 
to dissolution. Yet these are but the skir- 
mishings of a petty warfare — the move- 
ments of nature and of passion, in a land 
of freemen — the harmless contests of men 
pulling in opposite ways at some of the 
smaller ropes in the tackling of our great 
national vessel. But look to these men in 
the time of need and the hour of suffering — 
look to them now, when in one great and 
calamitous visitation, the feeling of every 
animosity is overborne — look to them now, 
when the darkness is gathering, and the 
boding cloud of disaster hangs over us, and 
some chilling fear of insecurity is beginning 
to circulate in whispers through the land — 
look to them now, when in the entombment 
of this sad and melancholy day, the hopes 
of more than half a century are to be in- 
terred — look to them now, when from one 
end of the country to the other, there is the 
mourning of a very great and sore lamenta- 
tion, so that all who pass by, may say, this 
is a grievous mourning to the people of the 
land. Oh! is it possible that these can be 
other than honest tears, or that tears of pity 
can on such an emergency as the present, 
be other than tears of patriotism. Who 
does not see this principle sitting in visible 
expression on the general countenance of 



the nation— that the people are sound at 
heart, and that with this, as the main sheet of 
our dependence, we may still, under the bless- 
ing of God, weather and surmount all the 
difficulties which threaten us. 

II. I now proceed to the second head of 
discourse, under which I was to attempt 
such an improvement of this great national 
disaster, as might enforce the lesson, that 
under every fear and every difficulty, it is 
the righteousness of the people alone which 
will exalt and perpetuate a nation; and 
that, therefore, if this great interest be ne- 
glected, instead of learning any thing from 
the judgments of God, we are in immi- 
nent danger of being utterly overwhelmed 
by them. 

Under my first head I restricted myself 
exclusively to the virtue of loyalty, which 
is one of the special, but I most willingly 
admit, nay, and most earnestly contend, is 
also one of the essential attributes of righ- 
teousness. But there is a point on which I 
profess myself to be altogether at an issue 
with a set of men, who composed, at one 
time, whatever they do now, a very nume- 
rous class of society. I mean those men, 
who, with all the ostentation, and all the 
intolerance of loyalty, evinced an utter in- 
difference either to their own personal reli- 
gion, or to the religion of the people who were 
around them — who were satisfied with the 
single object of keeping the neighbourhood 
in a state of political tranquillity — who, if 
they could only get the population to be 
quiet, cared not for the extent of profane- 
ness or of profligacy that was among them — 
and who, while they thought to signalize 
themselves in the favour of their earthly 
king, by keeping down every turbulent or 
rebellious movement among his subjects, 
did, in fact, by their own conspicuous ex- 
ample lead them and cheer them on in their 
rebellion against the king of heaven — and, 
as far as the mischief could be wrought by 
the contagion of their personal influence, 
these men of loyalty did what in them lay, 
to spread a practical contempt for Chris- 
tianity, and for all its ordinances, through- 
out the land. 

Now, I would have such men to under- 
stand, if any such there be within the sphere 
of my voice, that it is not with their loyalty 
that I am quarrelling. I am only telling 
them, that this single attribute of righteous- 
ness will never obtain a steady footing in the 
hearts of the people, except on the ground 
of a general principle of righteousness. I 
am telling them how egregiously they are 
out of their own politics, in ever thinking 
that they can prop the virtue of loyalty in 
a nation, while they are busily employed, 
by the whole instrumentality of their ex- 
ample and of their doings, in sapping the 
very foundation upon which it is reared. I 
am telling them, that if they wish to see 



ON THE DEA.TH OF THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. 



345 



loyalty in perfection, and such loyalty, too, 
as requires not any scowling vigilance of 
theirs to uphold it, they must look to the 
most moral, and orderly, and christianized 
districts of the country. I am merely teach- 
ing them a lesson of which they seem to be 
ignorant, that if you loosen the hold of 
Christianity over the hearts of the popula- 
tion, you pull down from their ascendency 
all the virtues of Christianity, of which 
loyalty is one. Yes, and I will come yet a 
little closer, and take a look of that loyalty 
which exists in the shape of an isolated 
principle in their own bosoms. I should 
like to gauge the dimensions of this loyalty 
of theirs, in its state of disjunction from the 
general principle of Christianity. I wish 
to know the kind of loyalty which charac- 
terizes the pretenders to whom I am al- 
luding — the men who have no value for 
preaching, but as it stands associated with 
the pageantry of state — the men who would 
reckon it the most grievous of all heresies, 
to be away from church on some yearly 
day of the king's appointment, but are sel- 
dom within its walls on the weekly day of 
God's appointment — the men who, if minis- 
ters were away from their post of loyalty, 
on an occasion like the present, would, with- 
out mercy, and without investigation, de- 
nounce them as suspicious characters; but 
who, when we are at the post of piety, 
dispensing the more solemn ordinances of 
Christianity, openly lead the way in that 
crowded and eager emigration which car- 
ries half the rank and opulence of the town 
away from us. What, oh . l what is the 
length, and the breadth, and the height, and 
the depth of this vapouring, swaggering, 
high-sounded loyalty ?— It is nothing better 
than the loyalty of political subalterns, in 
the low game of partisanship, or of whip- 
pers-in to an existing administration— it is 
not the loyalty which will avail us in the day 
of danger — it is not to them that we need to 
look, in the evil hour of a country's visita- 
tion; — but to those right-hearted, sound- 
thinking christian men, who, without one 
interest to serve, or one hope to forward, 
honour their king, because they fear their 
God. 

Let me assure such a man, if such a man 
there is within the limits of this assembly — 
that, keen as his scent may be after political 
heresies, the deadliest of all such heresies 
lies at his own door — that there is not to be 
found, within the city of our habitation, a 
rottener member of the community than 
himself— that, withering as he does by his 
example the principle which lies at the root 
of all national prosperity, it is he, and such 
as he, who stands opposed to the best and 
he dearest objects of loyalty — and if ever 
<hat shall happen, which it is my most de- 
lightful confidence that God will avert from 
us and from our children's children to the 
2X 



latest posterity — if ever the wild frenzy of 
revolution shall run through the ranks of 
Britain's population, these are the men who 
will be the most deeply responsible for all its 
atrocities and for all its horrors * 

* I cannot but advert here to a delicate impedi- 
ment which lies in the way of the faithful exercise 
of the ministerial functions, from the existence of 
two great political parties, which would monopo- 
lize between them, all the sentiments and all the 
services of the country. Is it not a very possible 
thing that the line of demarcation between these 
parties, may not coalesce, throughout all its extent, 
with the sacred and immutable hue of distinction 
between right and wrong'] — and ought not this 
latter line to stand out so clearly and so promi- 
nently to the eye of the christian minister, that in 
the act of dealing around him the reproofs and the 
lessons of Christianity, the former line should be 
away from his contemplation altogether 1 But it 
is thus that, with the most scrupulous avoidance 
both of the one and of the other species of partisan 
ship, he may, in the direct and conscientious dis- 
charge of the duties of his office, deliver himself in 
such a way as to give a kind of general and corpo- 
rate offence to one political denomination; and 
what is still more grievous, as to be appropriated 
by the men of another denomination, with whom 
in then capacity as politicians he desires no fellow- 
ship whatever, and whose applauses of him in this 
capacity are in every way most" odious and insuf- 
ferable. 

It appears to us that a christian minister cannot 
keep himself in the true path of consistency at all, 
without refusing to each of the parties all right of 
appropriation. Their line of demarcation is not 
his line. Their objects are not his objects. He 
asks no patronage from the one — he asks no favour 
from the other, except that they shall not claim 
kindred with him. He may suffer, at times, from 
the intolerance of the unworthy underlings of the 
former party : but never will his sensations of dis- 
taste, for the whole business of party politics, be- 
come so intense and so painful, as when the hosan- 
nas of the latter party threaten to rise around him. 

We often hear from each, and more particularly 
from one of these parties, of the virtue and the 
dignity of independence. The only way, it appears 
to us, in which a man can sustain the true and 
complete character of independence, is to be inde- 
pendent of both. He who cares for neither of them 
is the only independent man ; and to him only be- 
longs the privilege of crossing and re-crossing their 
factious line of demarcation, just as he feels mmseli 
impelled by the high, paramount, and subordinating 
principles of the Christianity which he professes. 
In the exercise of this privilege, I here take the 
opportunity of saying, that if the chastisement of 
public scorn should fall on those who, under the 
disguise of public principle, have found personal 
aggrandisement for themselves, it should fall with 
equal severity on those who, under the same dis- 
guise, are seeking precisely the same object — that 
if there be some men in the country who care not 
for the extent of profaneness and profligacy that 
is among the people, provided they can only keep 
them quiet, there are also some men who care not for 
their profaneness or their profligacy, provided they 
can only keep them unquiet — who bear no other 
regard to the people than merely as an instrument 
of annoyance against an existing aolministration — - 
who can shed their serpent tears over their dis- 
tresses, and yet be inwardly grieved, should either 



348 



ON THE DEATH OF THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. 



Having thus briefly adverted to one of 
the causes of impiety and consequent dis- 
loyalty, I shall proceed to offer a few re- 
marks on the great object of teaching the 
people righteousness, not so much in a 
general and didactic manner, as in the way 
of brief, and, if possible, of memorable illus- 
tration — gathering my argument from the 
present event, and availing myself, at the 
same time, of such principles as have been 
advanced in the course of the preceding ob- 
servations. 

My next remark, then, on this subject, 
will be taken from a sentiment, of which I 
think you must all on the present occasion 



a favourable season or reviving trade disappoint 
their boding speculation — who, in the face of un- 
deniable common sense, can ascribe to political 
causes, such calamities as are altogether due to 
what is essential and uncontrollable in the circum- 
stances of the country — and who, if on the strength 
of misrepresentation and artifice they could only 
succeed in effecting the great object of their own 
instalment into office, and dispossession of their 
antagonists, would prove themselves, then, to be 
as indifferent to the comfort, as they show them- 
selves now to be utterly indifferent to the religion 
and the virtue of the country's population. 

But turning away from the beggarly elements 
of such a competition as this, let us remark, that 
on the one hand, a religious administration will 
never take offence at a minister who renders a per- 
tinent reproof to any set of men, even though they 
should happen to be their own agents or their own 
underlings ; and that, on the other hand, a minis- 
ter who is actuated by the true spirit of his office, 
will never so pervert or so prostitute his functions, 
as to descend to the humble arena of partisanship. 
He is the faithful steward of such things as are 
profitable for reproof, and for doctrine, and for cor- 
rection, and for instruction in righteousness. His 
single object with the men who are within reach 
of his hearing, is, that they should come to the 
knowledge of the truth and be saved. In the ful- 
filment of this object, he is not the servant of any 
administration — though he certainly renders such 
a service to the state as will facilitate the work of 
governing to all administrations — as will bring a 
mighty train of civil and temporal blessings along 
with it — and in particular, as will diffuse over the 
whole sphere of his influence, a loyalty as steadfast 
as the friends of order, and as free from every taint 
of political severity, as the most genuine friends of 
freedom can desire. 

There is only one case in which it is conceived 
that this partisanship of a christian minister is at 
all justifiable. Should the government of our coun- 
try ever fall into the hands of an infidel or demi- 
infidel administration — should the men at the helm 
of affairs be the patrons of all that is unchristian 
in the sentiment and literature of the country — 
should they offer a violence to its religious esta- 
blishments — and thus attempt what we honestly 
believe would reach a blow to the piety and the 
character of our population — then I trust that the 
language of partisanship will resound from many 
of the pulpits of the land — and that it will be 
turned in one stream of pointed invective against 
such a ministry as this — till, by the force of public 
opinion, it be swept away as an intolerable nui- 
sance, from the face of our kingdom. 



feel the force and the propriety. Would it 
not have been most desirable could the 
whole population of the city have been ad- 
mitted to join in the solemn services of the 
day ? Do you not think that they are pre- 
cisely such services as would have spread 
a loyal and patriotic influence among them ? 
Is it not experimentally the case, that, over 
the untimely grave of our fair Princess, the 
meanest of the people would have shed as 
warm and plentiful a tribute of honest sen- 
sibility as the most refined and delicate 
among us ? And, I ask, is it not unfortu- 
nate, that, on the day of such an affecting, 
and, if I may so style it, such a national 
exercise, there should not have been twenty 
more churches, with twenty more minis- 
ters, to have contained the whole crowd of 
eager and interested listeners ? A man of 
mere loyalty, without one other accomplish- 
ment, will, I am sure, participate in a regret 
so natural ; but couple this regret with the 
principle, that the only way in which the 
loyalty of the people can effectually be 
maintained, is on the basis of Christianity, 
and then the regret in question embraces 
an object still more general — and well were 
it for us, if, amid the insecurity of families, 
and the various fluctuations of fortune and 
of arrangement that are taking place in the 
highest walks of society, the country were 
led, by the judgment with which it has now 
been visited, to deepen the foundation of 
all its order and of all its interests, in the 
moral education of its people. Then indeed 
the text would have its literal fulfilment. 
When the judgments of God are in the 
earth, the rulers of the world would lead 
the inhabitants thereof to learn righteous- 
ness. 

In our own city, much in this respect 
remains to be accomplished ; and I speak 
of the great mass of our cit)^ and suburb 
population, when I say, that through the 
week they lie open to every rude and ran- 
dom exposure — and when Sabbath comes, 
no solemn appeal to the conscience, no stir- 
ring recollections of the past, no urgent 
calls to resolve against the temptations of 
the future, come along with it. It is unde- 
niable, that within the compass of a few 
square miles, the daily walk- of the vast ma- 
jority of our people is beset with a thousand 
contaminations ; and whether it be on the 
way to the market, or on the way to the 
workshop, or on the way to the crowded 
manufactory, or on the way to any one re- 
sort of industry that you may choose to 
condescend upon, or on the way to the 
evening home, where the labours of a vir- 
tuous day should be closed by the holy 
thankfulness of a pious and affectionate 
family ; be it in passing from one place to 
another ; or be it amid all the throng of se- 
dentary occupations: there is not one day 
of the six, and not one hour of one of these 



ON THE DEATH OF THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. 



347 



days, when frail and unsheltered man is not 
plied by the many allurements of a world 
lying in wickedness — when evil communi- 
cations are not assailing him with their cor- 
ruptions — when the full tide of example 
does not bear down upon his purposes, and 
threaten to sweep all his purity and all his 
principle away from him. And when the 
seventh day comes, where, I would ask, are 
the efficient securities that ought to be pro- 
vided against all those inundations of profli- 
gacy which rage w-ithout control through 
the week, and spread such a desolating influ- 
ence among the morals of the existing gene- 
ration ? — Oh ! tell it not in Gath, publish it 
not in the streets of Askelon — this seventh 
day, on which it would require a wiiole 
army of labourers to give every energy 
which belongs to them, to the plenteous 
harvest of so mighty a population, witnesses 
more than one half of the people precluded 
from attending the house of God, and wan- 
dering exery man after the counsel of his 
own heart, and in the sight of his own eyes — 
on this day, the ear of heaven is assailed 
with a more audacious cry of rebellion than 
on any other, and the open door of invita- 
tion plies with its welcome the hundreds 
and the thousands who have found their 
habitual w r ay to the haunts of depravity. 
And is there no room, then, to wish for 
twenty more churches, and twenty more 
ministers — for men of zeal and of strength, 
who might go forth among these wanderers, 
and compel them to come in — for men of 
holy fervour, who might set the terrors of 
hell and the free offer of salvation before 
tfrem — for men of affection, who might visit 
the sick, the dying, and the afflicted, and 
cause the irresistible influence of kindness 
to circulate at large among their families — 
for men, who, while they fastened their 
most intense aim on the great object of pre- 
paring sinners for eternity, would scatter 
along the path of their exertions all the 
blessings of order, and contentment, and 
sobriety, and at length make it manifest as 
. day, that the righteousness of the people is 
the only effectual antidote to a country's 
ruin— the only path to a country's glory ? 

My next remark shall be founded on a 
principle to which I have already alluded— 
the desirableness of a more frequent inter- 
course between the higher and the lower 
orders of society ; and what more likely to 
accomplish this, than a larger ecclesiastical 
accommodation ?— not the scanty provision 
of the present day, by wmich the poor are 
excluded from the church altogether, but 
such a wide and generous system of ac- 
commodation, as that the rich and the poor 
might set in company together in the house 
of God. It is this christian fellowship, 
which more than any other tie, links so in- 
timately together, the high and the low in 
country parishes. There is, however, an- 



other particular to w r hich I would advert, 
and though I cannot do so without magni- 
fying my office, yet I know not a single 
circumstance which so upholds the golden 
line Gf life among our agricultural popula- 
tion, as the manner in which the gap be- 
tween the pinnacle of the community and 
its base is filled up by the w 7 eek-day duties 
of the clergyman — by that man, of whom 
it has been w 7 ell said, that he belongs to no 
rank, because he associates with all ranks — 
by that man, whose presence may dignify 
the palace, but whose peculiar glory it is to 
carry the influences of friendship and piety 
into cottages. 

This is the age of moral experiment, and 
much has been devised in our day for pro- 
moting the virtue, and the improvement, - 
and the economical habits of the lower or- 
ders of society. But in all these attempts 
to raise a barrier against the growing profli- 
gacy of our towns, one important element 
seems to have passed unheeded, and to 
have been altogether omitted in the calcu- 
lation. In all the comparative estimates of 
the character of a towm and the character 
of a country population, it has been little 
attended to, that the former are distin- 
guished from the latter by the dreary, hope- 
less, and almost impassible distance at 
which they stand from their parish minis- 
ter. Now, though it be at the hazard of 
again magnifying my office, I must avow, 
in the hearing of you all, that there is a 
moral charm in his personal attentions and 
his affectionate civilities, and the ever-recur- 
ring influence of his visits and his prayers, 
which, if restored to the people, would im- 
part a new moral aspect, and eradicate 
much of the licentiousness and the dis- 
honesty that abound in our cities. On this 
day of national calamity, if ever the subject 
should be adverted to from the pulpit, we 
may be allowed to express our riveted con- 
victions on the close alliance that obtains 
between the political interests and the reli- 
gious character of a country. And I am 
surely not out of place, w T hen, on looking 
at the mighty mass of a city population, I 
state my apprehension, that if something 
be not done to bring this enormous physical 
strength under the control of christian and 
humanized principle, the day may yet come 
when it may lift against the authorities of 
the land its brawmy vigour, and discharge 
upon them all the turbulence of its rude and 
volcanic energy. 

Apart altogether from the essential cha- 
racter of the gospel, and keeping out of 
view the solemn representations of Chris- 
tianity, by which we are told that each in- 
dividual of these countless myriads carries 
an undying principle in his bosom, and 
that it is the duty of the minister to che- 
rish it, and to watch over it, as one who 
must render, at the judgment-seat, an ac- 



348 



ON THE DEATH OF THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. 



count of the charge which has been com- 
mitted to him— apart from this considera- 
tion entirely, which I do not now insist 
upon, though I blush not to avow its para- 
mount importance over all that can be al- 
leged on the inferior ground of political 
expediency, yet, on that ground alone, I 
can gather argument enough for the mighty 
importance of such men, devoted to the la- 
bours of their own separate and peculiar 
employments — giving an unbewildered at- 
tention to the office of dealing with the 
hearts and principles of the thousands who 
are around them — coming forth from the 
preparations of an unbroken solitude, arm- 
ed with all the omnipotence of Truth 
among their fellow citizens — and who, rich 
in the resources of a mind which meditates 
upon these things, and gives itself wholly to 
them, are able to suit their admonitions to 
all the varieties of human character, and to 
draw their copious and persuasive illustra- 
tions from every quarter of human ex- 
perience. But I speak not merely of their 
Sabbath ministrations. Give to each a ma- 
nageable extent of town within the com- 
pass of his personal exertions, and where 
he might be able to cultivate a ministerial 
influence among all its families — put it into 
his power to dignify the very humblest of 
its tenements by the courteousness of his 
soothing and benevolent attentions — let it 
be such a district of population as may not 
bear him down by the multiplicity of its 
demands ; but where, without any feverish 
or distracting variety of labour, he may be 
able to familiarize himself to every house, 
and to know every individual, and to visit 
every spiritual patient, and to watch every 
death-bed. and to pour out the sympathies 
of a pious and affectionate bosom over every 
mourning and bereaved family. Bring every 
city of the land under such moral regimen 
as this, and another generation would not 
pass away, ere righteousness ran down all 
their streets like a mighty river. That sul- 
len depravity of character, which the gib- 
bet cannot scare away, and which sits so 
immoveable in the face of the most me- 
nacing severities, and in despite of the 
yearly recurrence of the most terrifying ex- 
amples, — could not keep its ground against 
the mild, but restless application of an ef- 
fective christian ministry. The very worst 
of men would be constrained to feel the 
power of such an ( application. Sunk as 
they are in ignorance, and inured as they 
have been from the first years of their 
neglected boyhood, to scenes of week-day 
profligacy and Sabbath profanation — these 
men, of whom it may be said, that all their 
moralities are extinct, and all their tender- 
ness blunted — even they would feel the 
power of that reviving touch, which the 
mingled influence of kindness and piety 
can often impress on the souls of the most 



abandoned — even they would open the 
flood-gates of their hearts, and pour forth 
the tide of an honest welcome on the men 
who had come in all the cordiality of good 
will to themselves and to their families. 
And thus might a humanizing and an 
exalting influence be made to circulate 
through all their dwelling-places : and such 
a system as this, labouring as it must do at 
first, under all the discouragements of a 
heavy and unpromising outset, would ga- 
ther, during every year of its perseverance, 
new triumphs and new testimonies to its 
power. All that is ruthless and irreclaim- 
able, in the character of the present day, 
would in time be replaced by the softening 
virtues of a purer and a better generation. 
This I know to be the dream of many a 
philanthropist: and a dream as visionary 
as the very wildest among the fancies of 
Utopianism it ever will be, under any other 
expedient tnan the one I am now pointing 
to : and nothing, nothing within the whole 
compass of nature, or of experience, will 
ever bring it to its consummation, but the 
multiplied exertions of the men who carry 
in their hearts the doctrine, and who bear 
upon their persons the seal and commis- 
sion of the New Testament. And, if it be 
true that towns are the great instruments 
of political revolution — if it be there that 
all the elements of disturbance are ever 
found in busiest fermentation — if we learn, 
from the history of the past, that they 
are the favourite and frequented rallying- 
places for all the brooding violence of the 
land — who does not see that the pleading 
earnestness of the christian minister is at 
one with the soundest maxims of political 
wisdom, when he urges upon the rulers and 
magistrates of the land, that this is indeed 
the cheap defence of a nation — this the vi- 
tality of all its strength and of all its great- 
ness. 

And it is with the most undissenuVed sa- 
tisfaction that I advert to the first step of 
such a process, within the city of our ha- 
bitation, as I have now been recommend- 
ing. It may still be the day of small things; 
but it is such a day as ought not to be de- 
spised. The prospect of another church 
and another labourer in this interesting 
field, demands the most respectful acknow- 
ledgement of the christian public, to the 
men who preside over the administration 
of our affairs; and they, I am sure, will 
not feel it to be oppressive, if, met by the 
willing cordialities of a responding popula- 
tion, the demand should ring in their ears for 
another, and another, till, like the moving 
of the spirit on the face of the waters, which 
made beauty and order to emerge out of 
the rude materials of creation, the germ of 
moral renovation shall at length burst into 
all the efflorescence of moral accomplish 
ment— and the voice of psalms shall again 



ON THE DEATH OF THE 



PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. 



349 



be heard in our families— and impurity and 
violence shall be banished from our streets 
— and then the erasure made, in these de- 
generate days, on the escutcheons of our city, 
again replaced in characters of gold, shall 
tell to every stranger, that Glasgow flourish- 
eth through the preaching of the word.* 

And though, under the mournful remem- 
brance of our departed Princess, we can- 
not but feel, on this day of many tears, as 



* The original motto of the City is, " Let Glas- 
gow flourish through the preaching of the Word ;" 
which, by the curtailment alluded to, has been re- 
duced to the words, "Let Glasgow flourish." 



if a volley of lightning from heaven had 
been shot at the pillar of our State, and 
struck away the loveliest ornament from its 
pinnacle, and shook the noble fabric to its 
base ; yet still, if we strengthen its founda- 
tion in the principle and character of our 
people, it will stand secure on the deep and 
steady basis of a country's worth, which 
can never be overthrown. And thus an 
enduring memorial of our Princess will be 
embalmed in the hearts of the people, and 
good will emerge out of this dark and bitter 
dispensation, if, when the judgments of God 
are in the earth, the inhabitants of the 
world shall learn righteousness. 



THE 

DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIAN CHARITY 

APPLIED TO THE 
CASE OF RELIGIOUS DIFFERENCES. 



A SERMON, 

PREACHED BEFORE THE AUXILIARY SOCIETY, GLASGOW, TO THE HIBERNIAN 
SOCIETY, FOR ESTABLISHING SCHOOLS, AND CIRCULATING THE HOLY" 
SCRIPTURES IN IRELAND. 



PREFACE. 

If the question were put, what is Popery ? an answer might be given by the 
enumeration of what are conceived to be its leading principles. Without at all 
inquiring whether the conception be a just one or not, there are many persons 
who would tell us, that the members of this denomination ascribe an infallibility 
to the Pope ; and that they hold the doctrine of transubstantiation ; and that they 
offer religious worship to departed saints, and render an external homage to 
images ; and that they give such an importance to the ceremonial of extreme 
unction, as to conceive, that by the administration of it, all the guilt of the most 
worthless and unrenewed character is expiated and done away. — It is enough 
to mark our aversion to these positions and practices, that we say, that every one 
of them is unscriptural ; and that, if this be a real portraiture of Popery, it is a 
religion which has no foundation in truth or in the Bible. But it is altogether a 
different question, in how far Popery, as thus defined, is actually realized by those 
men who wear the name and the profession of it. Whether this was ever the 
Popery of a past age, is a question of erudition, into which we propose not to 
enter. And whether this be the Popery of any people of the present age, is a 
question of observation, into which we propose not to enter. We confine our- 
selves to the object of looking into our own hearts, and of looking to those who 
are immediately around us, with the view of ascertaining whether the contamina- 
tion and the substantial mischief of these alleged principles might not be detected 
on a nearer field of observation. 

We are all aware that such an attempt as this is not enough to satisfy many 
Protestants, or to fill up the measure of their zeal against what they hold to be a 
most blasphemous and pestilential heresy. They would not merely demand the 
disavowal of a corrupt system — but they would like to see it attached with all its 
deformities in the form of a personal charge to the men of a certain prominent and 
visible denomination. Now, we do not see how the former demand can be more 
effectually met, than by the denunciation of this system, under whatever shape, 
or in whatever quarter of society, it may be found. — Nor do we conceive how a 
more honest and decisive seal of reprobation can be set upon it, than by the ex- 
pression of a dislike so strong and so irreconcilable, as to be felt, even when it 
obtrudes upon our notice any of its features amongst the individuals of our own 
connexion, and offers itself to view under the screen of an ostensible Protestant- 
ism. As to the latter demand, we frankly confess that we are not historically 
enough acquainted with the present state of the Catholic mind, to be at all able 

350 



DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIAN CHARITY, &C. 



351 



to comply with it. But should any member of that persuasion come forward with 
his own explanations, and give such a mitigated view of the peculiarities of Catho- 
lics, as to leave the great evangelical doctrines of faith and repentance unimpaired 
by them, and state that an averment of the Bible has never, in his instance, been 
neutralized or practically stript of its authority, by an averment of Popes or of 
Councils ; — on what principle of candour shall the recognition of a common Chris- 
tianity be withheld from him ? Is it not better to confine our animadversion to 
the principles of the system, and to let persons alone : and if these persons shall 
step forward with the affirmation that the system is imaginary, or that, at least, it 
has no actual residence with them, whether is it the more Christian exhibition on 
our part, that we exercise, in their behalf, the charity w T hich believeth all things, 
or that we pertinaciously keep by a charge, the truth of which they solemnly 
disclaim ? 



SERMON. 

" And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in 
thine own eye ? — Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye ; and behold 
a beam is in thine own eye 1 — Thou hypocrite ! first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then 
shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." — Matthew vii. 3, 4, 5. 



The word beam suggests the idea of a 
rafter ; and it looks very strange that a thing 
of such magnitude should be at all con- 
ceived to have its seat or fixture in the eye. 
To remove, by a single sentence, this mis- 
apprehension, I shall just say, that the 
word in the original signifies also a thorn, 
a something that the eye has room for, but 
at the same time much larger than a mote, 
and which must, therefore, have a more 
powerful effect in deranging the vision, and 
preventing a man from forming a right es- 
timate of the object he is looking at. Take 
this along with you, and the three verses 
will run thus: — Why beholdest thou the 
mote that is in thy brother's eye, but con- 
siderest not the thorn that is in thine own 
eye ? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, 
Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye ; 
and behold a thorn is in thine own eye? 
Thou hypocrite ! first cast out the thorn out 
of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see 
clearly to cast out the mote out of thy bro- 
ther's eye." 

In my farther observations on this pas- 
age, I shall first introduce what I propose 
o make the main subject of my discourse, 
by a very short application of the leading 
principle of my text, to the case of those 
judgments that we are so ready to pro- 
nounce on each other in private life. And 
I shall, secondly, proceed to the main sub- 
ject, viz. that more general kind of judg- 
ment which we are apt to pass on the men 
of a different persuasion, in matters of re- 
ligion. 

I. Every fault of conduct in the outer 
man, may be run up to some defect of prin- 
ciple in the inner man. It is this defect 
of principle, which gives the fault all its 



criminality. It is this alone, which makes it 
odious in the sight of God. It is upon this 
that the condemnation of the law rests; 
and on the day of judgment, when the se- 
crets of all hearts shall be laid open, it will 
be the share that the heart had in the mat- 
ter, which will form the great topic of ex- 
amination, when the deeds done in the 
body pass under the review of the Son of 
God. For example, it is a fault to speak evil 
one of another ; but the essence of the fault 
lies in the want of that charity which 
thinketh no ill. Had the heart been filled 
with this principle, no such bad thing as 
slander would have come out of it ; but if 
the heart be not filled with this principle, 
and in its stead there be the operation of 
envy — or a desire to avenge* yourselves of 
others, by getting the judgment of men to 
go against them — or a taste for the ludi- 
crous, which rather than be ungratified, 
will expose the peculiarities of the absent 
to the mirth of a company — or the idle and 
thoughtless levity of gossiping, which can- 
not be checked by any consideration of the 
mischief that may be done by its indul- 
gence ; I say, if any or all of these, take up 
that room in the heart, which should have 
been filled with charity, and sent forth the 
fruits of it, then the stream will just be as 
the fountain, and out of the treasure of the 
evil heart, there will flow that evil practice 
of censoriousness, on which the gospel of 
Christ pronounces its severe and decisive 
condemnation. 

But though all evil-speaking be referable 
to the want of a good, or to the existence 
of an evil principle in the heart, yet there 
is one style of evil-speaking different from 
another ; and you can easily coneeive how a 



352 



DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIAN CHARITY, &C. 



man addicted to one way of it, may hate, 
and despise, and have a mortal antipathy, 
to another way of it. In this case, it is not 
the thing itself in its essential deformity 
that he condemns ; it is some of the dis- 
gusting accompaniments of the thing ; and 
while these excite his condemnation, and 
he views the man in whom they are real- 
ized, as every way worthy of being repro- 
bated, he may not be aware, all the while, 
that in himself there exists an equal, and 
perhaps a much larger portion of that very 
principle, which he should be reprobated 
for. The forms of evil-speaking break out 
into manifold varieties. There is the soft 
insinuation. There is the resentful outcry. 
There is the manly and indignant disap- 
proval. There is the invective of vulgar 
malignity. There is the poignancy of sa- 
tirical remark. There is the giddiness of 
mere volatility, which trips so carelessly 
along, and spreads its entertaining levities 
over a gay and light-hearted party. These 
are all so many transgressions of one and 
the same duty ; and you can easily con- 
ceive an enlightened Christian sitting in 
judgment over them all, and taking hold of 
the right principle upon which he would 
condemn them all ; and which, if brought 
to bear with efficacy on the consciences of 
the different offenders, would not merely 
silence the passionate evil-speaker out of 
his outrageous exclamations, and restrain 
the malignant, evil-speaker from his delibe- 
rate thrusts at the reputation of the absent ; 
but would rebuke the humorous evil-speaker 
out of his fanciful and amusing sketches, 
and the gossiping evil-speaker out of his 
tiresome and never-ending narratives. Now 
you may further conceive, how a man who 
realizes upon his own character one of 
these varieties, might have a positive dislike 
to another of them; how the open and 
generous-hearted denouncer of what is 
wrong, may hate from his very soul the 
poison of a sly and secret insinuation ; how 
he who delivers himself in the chastened 
and well-bred tone of a gentleman, may 
recoil from the violence of an unmannerly 
invective ; how he who enjoys the ridicu- 
lous of character, may be hurt and offended 
at hearing of the criminal of character ; — 
and thus each, with the thorn in his own 
eye, may advert with regret and disappro- 
bation to the mote in his brother's eye. 

Now, mark the two advantages which 
arise from every man bringing himself to a 



the leaven of iniquity over them all. By 
looking into his own heart, he is made ac- 
quainted with the movements of this prin- 
ciple. When forced to disapprove of others, 
his disapprobation is not a mere matter of 
taste, or of education, but the entire and 
well-founded disapprobation of principle. 
He sees where the radical mischief of the 
whole business lies. He sees that if the 
principle of doing no ill were established 
within the heart, it would cut up by the 
root all evil-speaking in all its shapes and 
in all its modifications. His own diligent 
keeping of his own heart upon this subject 
would bring the matter into his frequent 
contemplation, and enable him to perceive 
where its essence and its malignity lay, and 
give him an enlightened judgment of it in 
all its effects and workings upon others ; 
and thus, by the very progress of struggling 
against it, and watching against it, and pray- 
ing against it, and the strength of divine 
grace prevailing against it, and at length suc- 
ceeding in pulling the thorn out of his own 
eye, he would see clearly to cast out the 
mote out of his brother's eye. 

But another mighty advantage of this self- 
examination is, that the more a man does ex- 
amine the more does he discover the infirmi- 
ties of his own character. That very infirmity 
against which, in another, he might have 
protested with all the force of a vehement 
indignation, he might find lurking in his own 
bosom, though under the disguise of a dif- 
ferent form. Such a discovery as this will 
temper his indignation. It will humble 
him into the meekness of wisdom. It will 
soften him into charity. It will infuse a can- 
dour and a gentleness into all his judg- 
ments. The struggle he has had with him- 
self to keep down the sin he sees in an- 
other, will train him to an indulgence he 
might never have felt, had he been altoge- 
ther blind to the diseases of his own moral 
constitution. When he tries to reform a 
neighbour, the attempt will be marked by 
all the mildness of one who is deeply con- 



strict examination, that he may if possible 
find out the principle of that fault in his 
own mind, which he conceives to deform 
the doings and the character of another. 
His attention is carried away from the 
mere accompaniment of the fault to its ac- 
tual and constituting essence. He pursues 
his search from the outward and accidental 
varieties, to the one orinciple which spreads 



the exposures which he himself may have 
to endure. And I leave it to your own ex- 
perience of human nature to determine, 
whether he bids fairer for success who re- 
bukes with the intolerant tone of a man 
who is unconscious of his own blemishes ; 
or he who, with all the spirituality of a 
humble and exercised Christian, endea- 
vours to restore him who is overtaken in 
a fault, with the spirit of meekness, " con- 
sidering himself lest he also be tempted." 

Now, the fault of evil-speaking is only one 
out of the many. The lesson of the text 
might be farther illustrated by other cases 
and other examples. I might specify the 
various forms of worldliness, and wilful 
ness, and fraud, and falsehood, and profa 
nity, and show how the man who realizes 



DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIAN CHARITY, &C. 



353 



these sms in one form might pass his con- 
demnatory sentence on the man who rea- 
lizes the very same sins in another form ; 
and I might succeed in saying to the con- 
viction of his conscience, even as Nathan 
said to David, " Thou art the man ;" and 
might press home upon him the mighty 
task of self-examination, and set him from 
that to the task of diligent reform, that he 
might be enabled to see the fault of his 
neighbour more clearly, and rebuke it more 
gently, and winningly, and considerately. 
But my time restrains me from expatiat- 
ing; and however great my reluctance at 
being withdrawn from the higher office of 
dealing with the hearts and the consciences 
of individuals, to any other office, which, 
however good in itself, bears a most minute 
and insignificant proportion to the former, 
yet I must not forget that I stand here as 
the advocate of a public Society; — and I 
therefore propose to throw the remainder 
of my discourse into such a train of observ- 
ation as may bear upon its designs and its 
enterprises. 

II. I now proceed, then, to the more ge- 
neral kind of judgment which we are apt to 
pass on men of a different persuasion in 
matters of religion. — There is something in 
the very circumstance of its being a differ- 
ent religion from our own, which, prior to 
all our acquaintance with its details, is cal- 
culated to repel and to alarm us. It is not 
the religion in which we have been edu- 
cated. It is not the religion which fur- 
nishes us with our associations of sacred- 
ness. Nay, it is a religion, which, if admitted 
into our creed, would tear asunder all these 
associations. It would break up all the re- 
pose of our established habits. It would 
darken the whole field of our accustomed 
contemplations. It would put to flight all 
those visions of the mind which stood link- 
ed with the favour of God, and the blissful 
prospects of eternity. It would unsettle, and 
disturb, and agitate; and this, not merely 
because it threw a doubtfulness over the 
question of our personal security, but be- 
cause it shocked our dearest feelings of ten- 
derness for that which we had been trained 
to love, and of veneration for that which 
we had been trained to look at in the aspect 
of awful and imposing solemnity. 

Add to all this, the circumstance 'of its 
being a religion with the intolerance of 
which our fathers had to struggle unto the 
death ; a religion which lighted up the fires 
of persecution in other days; a religion, 
which at one time put on a face of terror, and 
bathed its hands in the blood of cruel mar- 
tyrdom ; a religion, by resistance to which, 
the men of a departed generation are em- 
balmed in the memory of the present, 
among the worthies of our established faith. 
We have only to contemplate the influence 
of these things, when handed down by tra- 
2 Y 



dition, and written in the most popular his- 
tories of the land, and told round the even- 
ing fire to the children of every cottage 
family,, who listen, in breathless wonder- 
ment, to the tale of midnight alarm, and 
kindle at the battle-cry lifted by the pa- 
triots of a former age, when they made 
their noble stand for the outraged rights 
of conscience and of liberty ; we have only 
to think of these things, and we shall cease 
our amazement, that such a religion, even 
though its faults and its merits be equally 
unknown, should light up a passionate 
aversion in many a bosom, and have a re- 
coiling sense of horror, and sacrilege, and 
blasphemy associated with its very name. 

Now Popery is just such a religion ; and 
I appeal to many present, if, though igno- 
rant of almost all its doctrines and all its 
distinctions, there does not spring up a 
quickly felt antipathy in their bosoms even 
at the very mention of Popery. There can 
be no doubt, that for one or two genera- 
tions, this feeling has been rapidly on the 
decline. But it still lurks, and operates, 
and spreads a very wide and sensible infu- 
sion over the great mass of our Scottish 
population. There is now a dormancy 
about it, and if does not break out into those 
rude and tumultuary surges, which at one 
time filled our streets with violence, and 
sent a firmament of jealousy and alarm 
over the whole face of our country. But 
we still meet with the traces of its existence. 
We feel it in our bosoms when we hear of 
any of the ceremonials of Popery ; and I just 
ask you to think of those peculiar sensations 
which rise within you at the mention of 
the holy water, or the consecrated wafer, 
or the extreme unction of the Catholic 
ritual. There is still a sensation of repug- 
nance, though it be dim, and in its painful- 
ness it be rapidly departing away from us ; 
and I think that, even at this hour, should 
a Popish Chapel send up its lofty minarets, 
and spread a rich and expanded magnifi- 
cence before the public eye, though many 
look with unmingled delight on the gran- 
deur of the ascending pile, yet there may 
still be detected a visible expression of 
jealousy and offence in the sidelong glance, 
and the inward and half-suppressed mur- 
muring of the occasional passenger. 

Now, is it not conceivable that such a 
traditional repugnance to Popery may exist 
in the very same mind, with a total igno- 
rance of what those things are for which 
it merits our repugnance? May there not 
be a kind of sensitive recoil in the heart 
against this religion, while the understand- 
ing is entirely blind to those alone features 
which justify our dislike to it ? May there 
not be all the violence of antipathy within 
us at Popery, and there be at the same 
time within us all the faults and all the errors 
of Popery ? May not the thorn be in our 



354 



DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIAN CHARITY, &C. 



own eye, while the mote in our neighbour's 
eye is calling forth all the severity of our 
indignation 1 While we are sitting in the 
chair of judgment, and dealing forth from 
the eminence of a superior discernment, 
our invectives against what we think to be 
sacrilegious in the creed and practice of 
others, may it not be possible to detect in 
ourselves the same perversion of principle, 
the same idolatrous resistance to truth and 
righteousness ; and surely, it well becomes 
us in this case, while we are so ready to 
precipitate our invectives upon the head of 
by-standers, to pass a humbling examina- 
tion upon ourselves, that we may come to 
a more enlightened estimate of that which 
is the object of our condemnation ; and that 
when we condemn, we may do it with wis- 
dom, and with the meekness of wisdom. 

Let us therefore take a nearer look of 
Popery, and try to find out how much of 
Popery there is in the religion of Protes- 
tants. 

But, let it be premised, that many of the 
disciples of this religion disclaim much of 
what we impute to them ; that the Popery 
of a former age may not be a fair specimen 
of the Popery of the present; that, in point 
of fact, many of its professors have evinced 
all the spirit of devout and enlightened 
Christians ; that in many districts of Popery, 
the Bible is in full and active circulation ; 
and that thus, while the name and exter- 
nals are retained, and waken up all our tra- 
ditional repugnance against it, there may 
be, among thousands and tens of thousands 
of its nominal adherents, all the soul, and 
substance, and principle, and piety of a re- 
formed faith. When I therefore enumerate 
the errors of Popery, I do not assert the 
extent to which they exist. I merely say 
that such errors are imputed to them ; and 
instead of launching forth into severities 
against those who are thus charged, all I 
propose is, to direct you to the far more 
profitable and Christian employment of 
shaming ourselves out of these very errors, 
that we may know how to judge of others, 
and that we may do it with the tenderness 
of charity. 

First, then, it is said of Papists, that they 
ascribe an infallibility to the Pope, so that 
if he were to say one thing and the Bible 
another, his authority would carry it over 
the authority of God. And, think you, my 
brethren, that there is no such Popery 
among you 1 Is there no taking of your 
religion upon trust from another, when 
you should draw it fresh and unsullied 
from the fountain-head of inspiration? You 
all have, or you ought to have Bibles ; and 
how often is it repeated there, " Hearken 
diligently unto me V Now, do you obey 
this requirement, by making the reading 
of your Bible a distinct and earnest exer- 
cise ? Do you ever dare to bring your fa- 



vourite minister to the tribunal of the word, 
or would you tremble at the presumption 
of such an attempt; so that the hearing of 
the word carries a greater authority over 
your mind than the reading of the word. 
Now this want of daring, this trembling at 
the very idea of a dissent from your minis- 
ter, this indolent acquiescence in his doc- 
trine, is just calling another man master; 
it is putting the authority of man over the 
authority of God ; it is throwing yourself 
into a prostrate attitude at the footstool of 
human infallibility ; it is not just kissing the 
toe of reverence, but it is the profounder 
degradation of the mind and of all its facul- 
ties ; and without the name of Popery— 
that name which lights up so ready an an- 
tipathy in your bosoms, your soul may be 
infected with the substantial poison, and 
your conscience be weighed down by the 
oppressive shackles, of Popery. And all 
this, in the noonday effulgence of a protest- 
ant country, where the Bible, in your mo- 
ther tongue, circulates among all your 
families — where it may be met with in al- 
most every shelf, and is ever soliciting you 
to look to the wisdom that is inscribed 
upon its pages. O ! how tenderly should 
we deal with the prejudices of a rude and 
uneducated people, who have no Bibles, 
and no art of reading among them, to un- 
lock its treasures, when we think that, even 
in this our land, the voice of human au- 
thority carries so mighty an influence along 
with it, and veneration for the word of God 
is darkened and polluted by a blind venera- 
tion for its interpreters. 

We tremble to read of the fulminations 
that have issued in other days from a conclave 
of cardinals. — Have we no conclaves, and 
no fulminations, and no orders of inquisition, 
in our own country ? Is there no professing 
brotherhood, or no professing sisterhood, to 
deal their censorious invectives around 
them, upon the members of an excommu- 
nicated world ? There is such a thing as a 
religious public. There is a " little flock," 
on the one "hand, and a "world lying in 
wickedness," on the other. But have a 
care, ye who think yourselves of the favour- 
ed few, how you never transgress the mild- 
ness, and charity, and unostentatious vir- 
tues of the gospel ; lest you hold out a dis- 
torted picture of Christianity in your neigh- 
bourhood, and impose that as religion on 
the fancy of the- credulous, which stands at 
as wide a distance from the religion of the 
New Testament, as do the services of an 
exploded superstition, or the mummeries of 
an antiquated ritual. 

But, again, it is said of Papists, that they 
hold the monstrous doctrine of transubstan- 
tiation. Now, a doctrine may be monstrous 
on two grounds. It may be monstrous on 
the ground of its absurdity, or it may bo 
monstrous on the ground of its impiety. It 



DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIAN CHARITY, &C. 



355 



must have a most practically mischievous 
effect on the conscience, should a commu- 
nicant sit down at the table of the Lord ; 
and think that the act of appointed remem- 
brance is equivalent to a real sacrifice, and 
a real expiation ; and leave the performance 
with a mind unburdened of all its past guilt, 
and resolved to incur fresh guilt to be wiped 
away by a fresh expiation. But in the 
sacrament of our own country, is there no 
crucifying of the Lord afresh? Is there 
none of that which gives the doctrine of 
transubstantiation all its malignant influence 
on the hearts and lives of its proselytes? Is 
there no mysterious virtue annexed to the 
elements of this ordinance ? Instead of be- 
ing repaired to for the purpose of recruit- 
ing our languid affections to the Saviour, 
and strengthening our faith, and arming us 
with a firmer resolution, and more vigorous 
purpose of obedience, does the conscience 
of no communicant solace itself by the 
mere performance of the outward act, and 
suffer him to go back with a more reposing 
security to the follies, and vices, and indul- 
gences of the world? Then, my brethren, 
his erroneous view of the sacrament may 
not be clothed in a term so appalling to the 
hearts and the feelings of Protestants as 
transubstantiation, but to it belongs all the 
immorality of transubstantiation; and the 
thorn must be pulled out of his eye, ere he 
can see clearly to cast the mote out of his 
brother's eye. 

But, thirdly, it is said, that Papists wor- 
ship saints, and fall down to graven 
images. This is very, very bad. " Thou 
shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him 
only shalt thou serve." But let us take 
ourselves to task upon this charge also. 
Have we no consecrated names in the an- 
nals of reformation — no worthies who hold 
too commanding a place in the remem- 
brance and affection of Protestants ? Are 
there no departed theologians, whose works 
hold too domineering an ascendency over 
the faith and practice of Christians ? Are 
there no laborious compilations of other 
days, which instead of interpreting the Bi- 
ble, have given its truths a shape, and a 
form, and an arrangement, that confer upon 
them another impression, and impart to 
them another influence, from the pure and 
original record? We may not bend the 
knee in any sensible chamber of imagery, 
at the remembrance of favourite saints. 
But do we not bend the understanding be- 
fore the volumes of favourite authors, and 
do a homage to those representations of 
the minds of the men of other days, which 
should be exclusively given to the repre- 
sentation of the mind of the Spirit, as put 
down in the book of the Spirit's revelation ? 
It is right that each of us should give the 
contribution of his own talents, and his own 
learning, to this most interesting cause ; bu* ' 



let the great drift of our argument be to 
prop the authority of the Bible, and to turn 
the eye of earnestness upon its pages ; for 
if any work, instead of exalting the Bible, 
shall be made, by the misjudging reverence 
of others, to stand in its place, then we in- 
troduce a false worship into the heart of a 
reformed country, and lay prostrate the 
conscience of men, under the yoke of a 
spurious authority. 

But, fourthly and lastly — for time does 
not permit such an enumeration as would 
exhaust all the leading peculiarities ascrib- 
ed to this faith — it is stated, that by the 
form of a confession, in the last days of a 
sinner's life, and the ministration of extreme 
unction upon his death-bed, he may be 
sent securely to another world, with all the 
unrepented profligacy, and fraud, and wick- 
edness of this world upon his forehead; 
that this is looked forward to, and counted 
upon by every Catholic — and sets him loose 
from all those anticipations which work 
upon the terror of other men — and throws 
open to him an unbridled career, through 
the whole of which, he may wanton in all 
the varieties of criminal indulgence — and 
at length, when death knocks at his door, if 
he just allow him time to send for his minis- 
ter, and to hurry along with him through 
the steps of an adjusted ceremonial, the 
man's passage through that dark vale, 
which carries him out of the world, is strew- 
ed with the promises of delusion — that 
every painful remembrance of the past is 
stifled amid the splendours and the juggle- 
ries of an imposing ritual : and in place of 
conscience rising upon him, and charging 
him with the guilty track of disobedience 
he has run, and forcing him to flee, amid 
the agitations of his restless bed, to the 
blood of the great Atonement, and alarming 
him into an earnest cry for the clean heart 
and the right spirit, knowing that unless he 
be born again unto repentance, he shall 
perish — why, my brethren, instead of these 
salutary exercises, we are told, that a ficti- 
tious hope is made to pour its treacherous 
sunshine into the bosom of a deceived 
Catholic — that, when standing on the verge 
of eternity, he can cast a fearless eye over 
its dark and untravelled vastness — and that, 
for the terror of its coming wrath, his guilty 
and unrenewed soul is filled with all the 
radiance and all the elevation of its antici- 
pated glories. 

O ! my brethren, it is piteous to think of 
such a preparation, but it is just such a pre- 
paration as meets the sad experience of us 
all. The man, whose every affection has 
clung to the world, till the last hour of his 
possibility to enjoy it ; who never put forth 
an effort or a prayer to be delivered from 
the power of sin, till every faculty of its 
pleasures had expired ; who, through the 
varied progress of his tastes and his desires, 



356 



DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIAN CHARITY, &C. 



from amusement to dissipation, and from 
dissipation to business, had always a some- 
thing in all the successive stages of his ca- 
reer, to take up his heart to the exclusion 
of him who formed it ; — why, such a man, 
who never thought of pressing the lessons 
of the minister upon his conscience, while 
life was vigorous, and the full swing of its 
delights and occupations could be indulged 
in, — do we never find, even in the bosom of 
this reformed country, that while his body 
retains all its health, his spirit retains all its 
hardihood ; and not till the arrival of that 
week, or that month, or that year, when the 
last messenger begins to alarm him, does 
he think of sending to the man of God, an 
humble supplicant for his attendant prayers. 
Ah ! my brethren, do you not think, amid 
the tones, and the sympathies, and the tears, 
which an affectionate pastor pours out in 
the fervency of his soul, and mingles with 
all his petitions, and all his addresses to the 
dying man, that no flattering unction ever 
steals upon him, to lull his conscience, and 
smooth the agony of his departure? Then, 
my brethren, you mistake it, you sadly mis- 
take it; and even here, where I lift my 
voice among a crowd of men, in the prime 
and unbroken vigour of their days, — if even 
the youngest and likeliest of you all, shall, 
trusting to some future repentance, cherish 
the purpose of sin another hour, and not 
resolve at this critical and important Now, 
to break it all off, by an act of firm abandon- 
ment, then be your abhorrence of Popery 
what it may, you are exemplifying the 
worst of its errors, and wrapping yourselves 
up in the crudest and most inveterate of its 
delusions. 

I have left myself very little time for the 
application of all this to the particular ob- 
jects of our Society. — First, Let it correct 
the very gross and vulgar tendency we all 
have, to think that the kingdom of God 
cometh with observation. That kingdom 
has its seat within us, and consists in the 
reign of principle over the hidden and invisi- 
ble mind. The mere deposition of the 
Pope from that throne where he sits sur- 
rounded with the splendour of temporali- 
ties, — the mere ascendency of Protestant 
princes, over the counsels and politics of 
the world, — the mere exclusion of Catholic 
subjects from our administrations and our 
Parliaments, — these things are all very ob- 
servable, but they may all happen, without 
one inch of progress being made towards 
the establishment of that kingdom, which 
cometh not with observation. Why, my 
brethren, the supposition may be a very odd 
one, nor do I say that it is at all likely to be 
realized, — but for the sake of illustration, I 
will come forward with it. Conceive that 
the Spirit of God, accompanying the circu- 
lation of the word of God, were to intro- 
duce all its truths and all its lessons into 



the heart of every individual of the Catho- 
lic priesthood ; and that the Pope himself, 
instead of being brought down in person 
from the secular eminence he occupies, 
were brought down in spirit, with all his 
lofty imaginations, to the captivity of the 
obedience of Christ,— then I am not pre- 
pared to assert, that under the influence of 
this great Christian episcopacy, a mighty 
advancement may not be made in building 
up the kingdom of God, and in throwing 
down the kingdom of Satan, throughout all 
the territories of Catholic Christendom. 
And yet, with all this, the name of Catholic 
may be retained, — the external and visible 
marks of distinction, may be as prominent 
as ever, — and with all those insignia about 
them, which keep up our passionate anti- 
pathy to this denomination, there might not 
be a single ingredient in the spirit of its 
members, to merit our rational antipathy. 
I beg you will just take all this as an at- 
tempt at the illustration of what I count a 
very important principle ; — and, to make 
the illustration more complete, let me take 
up the case of a Protestant country, and 
put the supposition, that, with the name of 
a pure and spiritual religion, the majority 
of its inhabitants are utter strangers to its 
power ; that an indifference to the matters 
of faith and of eternity, works all the effect 
of a deep and fatal infidelity on their con- 
sciences; that the world engrosses every 
heart, and the kingdom which is not of this 
world, is virtually disowned and held in 
derision among the various classes and 
characters of society ; that the spirit of the 
New Testament is banished from our Par- 
liaments, and banished from our Universi- 
ties, and banished from the great bulk of 
our ecclesiastical establishments, and it is 
only to be met with among a few inconsid- 
erable men, who are scouted by the general 
voice as the fanatics and visionaries of the 
day; — then, my brethren, I am not to be 
charmed out of truth, and of principle, by 
the mockery of a name. Call such a coun- 
try reformed, as you may, it is full of the 
strong-hold of antichrist, from one end to 
the other of it ; and there must be a revolu- 
tion of sentiment there, as well as in the 
darkest regions of Popery, ere the "ene- 
mies of the Son of God be consumed by the 
breath of his mouth," or "Babylon the 
great be fallen." 

Now, secondly, mark the influence of 
such a train of sentiment, on the spirit of 
those who are employed in spreading the 
light of reformation among a Catholic peo- 
ple. It will purify their aim, and give it a 
judicious direction, and chase away from 
their proceedings that offensive tone of ar- 
rogance which is calculated to irritate, and 
to beget a more determined obstinacy of 
prejudice than ever. Their great aim, to 
express it in one word, is to plant in the 



DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIAN CHARITY, &C. 



357 



hearts of all men of all countries, the reli- 
gion of the Bible. Their great direction 
will be toward the establishment of right 
principle ; and in the prosecution of it, they 
will carefully avoid multiplying the points 
of irritation, by giving vent to their tradi- 
tional repugnance against the less material 
forms of Popery. And the meek conscious- 
ness of that woful departure from vital 
Christianity, which has taken place even 
in the reformed countries of Christendom, 
will divest them of that repulsive supe- 
riority which, I fear, has gone far to defeat 
the success of many an attempt, upon many 
an enemy of the truth as it is in Jesus. 
" The whole amount of our message is to 
furnish you with the Bible, and to furnish 
you with the art of reading it. We think 
the lessons of this book well fitted to chase 
away the manifold errors which rankle in 
the bosom of our own country. You are 
the subjects of error as well as we ; and we 
trust that you will find them useful, in en- 
lightening the prejudices, and in aiding the 
frailties to w r hich, as the children of one com- 
mon humanity, we are all liable. Amongst 
us, there is a mighty deference to the au- 
thority of man : if this exists among you, 
here is a book which tells us to call no man 
master, and delivers us from the fallibility 
of human opinions. Amongst us there is a 
delusive confidence in the forms of godli- 
ness, with little of its power : here is a book, 
which tells us that holiness of life is the 
great end of all our ceremonies, and of all 
our sacraments. Amongst us there is a 
host of theologians, each wielding his sepa- 
rate authority over the creed and the con- 
science of his countrymen, and you, Catho- 
lics, have justly reproached us with our 
manifold and never-ending varieties; but 
here is a book, the influence of which is 
throwing all these differences into the back 
ground, and bringing forward those great 
and substantial points of agreement, which 
lead us to recognise the man of another 
creed to be essentially a Christian, — and we 
want to widen this circle of fellowship, that 
we may be permitted to live in the exercise 
of one faith and of one charity along with 
you. Amongst us the great bulk of men 
pass through life forgetful of eternity, and 
think, that by the sighs and the ministra- 
tions of their last days, they will earn all 
the blessedness of its ever-during rewards. 
But here is a book which tells us that we 
should seek first the kingdom of God ; and 
will not let us off with any other repentance 
than repentance now; and tells us, what 
we trusts will light with greater energy on 
your consciences than it has ever done upon 
ours, that we should haste and make no de- 
lay to keep the commandments." O ! my 
brethren, let us not despair that such argu- 
ments, urged by the mild charity which 
adorns the Bible, and followed up by its 



circulation, will at length tell on the firmest 
defences that bigotry ever raised around 
the conscience and the principles of men — 
and that, out of those jarring elements which 
threaten our empire with a wild war of tur- 
bulence and disorder, we shall, by the bless- 
ing of God, be enabled to cement all its 
members into one great and harmonious 
family. 

I conclude with saying, that, mainly and 
substantially speaking, I conceive this to be 
the very spirit of the attempt that is now 
making by the Society I am now pleading 
for. It is not an offensive declaration of war 
against Popery. It is true that it may be 
looked upon virtually as a measure of hos- 
tility against the errors of Catholics, but no 
more than it is a measure of hostility against 
the errors of Protestants. The light of truth 
is fitted to chase away ail error, and there is 
something in that Bible which the agents of 
our Society are now teaching so assiduously, 
that is not more humbling and more severe 
on the general spirit of Ireland, than it is on 
the general spirit of our own country. It is 
true, that some of the Catholics set their face 
against the establishment of our schools, but 
this resistance to education is not peculiar 
to them. It is to be met with in England. 
It is to be met with in our own boasted and 
beloved Scotland. It is to be met with even 
among the enlightened classes of British 
society — and shall we speak of it as if it 
fastened a peculiar stigma on that country, 
which we have left to languish in depression 
and ignorance for so many generations? 
But, this resistance on the part of Catholics 
is far from general. In one district the 
teachers of our schools are chiefly Roman 
Catholics; many of the school -houses are 
Catholic chapels; and the great majority of 
the scholars are children of Catholic parents, 
who have appeared not a little elated that 
their children have proved more expert in 
their scriptural quotations than their neigh- 
bours. — Call you not this an auspicious 
commencement? Is there no loosening of 
prejudice here? Do you not perceive that 
the firmest system of bigotry, ever erected 
over the minds of a prostrate population, 
must give way before the continued opera- 
tion of such an expedient as this? There is 
no one device of human policy that has 
done so much for Ireland in a whole cen- 
tury, as is now doing by the progress of 
education, and the freer circulation of the 
gospel of light through the dark mass and 
interior of their peasantry. Let me crave 
the assistance of the public in this place to 
one of the most powerful instruments that 
has yet been set agoing for helping forward 
this animating cause. It is an instrument 
ready made to your hand. The Hibernian 
Society have already established 347 schools 
in our sister country, a number equal to one 
third of the parishes in Scotland; and they 



358 



APPENDIX. 



are dealing out education, a pure scriptural 
education, to 27,700 Irish children. It will 
be a disgrace to us if we do not signalize 
ourselves in such a business as this. We 
talk of the Irish as a wild and uncivilized 
people. It will be the indication of a very- 
gross and uncivilized public at home, if we 
restrict our interchange with the men of 
the opposite shore, to the one interchange 
of merchandise. 

Let the rudeness of the Irish be what it 
may, sure I am, that there is much in their 
constitutional character to encourage us in 
this enterprise. They have many good 
points and engaging properties about them. 
I speak not of that peculiar style of genius 
and of eloquence, which gives such fascina- 
tion to the poets, the authors, the orators of 
Ireland. I speak of the great mass, and I do 
think that I perceive a something in the 
natural character of Ireland, which draws 
me more attractively to the love of its peo- 
ple, than any other picture of national man- 
ners ever has inspired. Even amid the wild- 
est extravagance of that humour which sits 
so visibly and so universally on the counte- 
nance of the Irish population, I can see a 
heart and a social sympathy along with it. 
Amid all the wayward and ungovernable 
flights of that rare pleasantry which belongs 
to them, there is a something by which the 
bosom of an Irishman can be seriously and 
permanently affected, and which I think in 
judicious hands is convertible into the finest 
results on the ultimate character of that 
people. It strikes me, that, of all the men 
on the face of the earth, they would be the 



worst fitted to withstand the expression of 
honest, frank, liberal, and persevering kind- 
ness ; — that if they saw there was no artful 
policy in the attentions by which you plied 
them, but that an upright and firmly sus- 
tained benevolence lay at the bottom of all 
your exertions for the best interest of their 
families ; could they attain the conviction, 
that, amid all the contempt and all the re- 
sistance you experienced from their hands, 
there still existed in your bosoms an un- 
quelled and an undissembled love for them 
and for their children; — could they see the 
working of this principle divested of every 
treacherous and suspicious symptom, and 
unwearied amid every discouragement in 
prosecuting the task of their substantial 
amelioration, — why, my brethren, let all 
this come to be seen, and in a few years I 
trust our devoted missionaries will bring it 
before them broad and undeniable as the 
light of day, and those hearts that are now 
shut against you in sullenness and disdain 
will be subdued into tenderness; the strong 
emotions of gratitude and nature will at 
length find their way through all the bar- 
riers of prejudice; and a people whom no 
penalties could turn, whom no terror of 
military violence could overcome, who kept 
on a scowling front of hostility that was 
not to be softened, while war spread its 
desolating cruelties over their unhappy land, 
— this very people will do homage to the 
omnipotence of charity, and when the 
mighty armour of Christian kindness is 
brought to bear upon them, it will be found 
to be irresistible. 



APPENDIX, 



Extracts from the Eleventh Annual Report of the Hibernian Society, for establishing 
Schools, and circulating the Holy Scriptures in Ireland. London, 1817. 



The Committee are persuaded, that among the 
^numerous Institutions which the Divine power 
and goodness have raised up in this kingdom, the 
Hibernian Society, if duly considered, will stand 
Very high in the scale of moral and religious im- 
portance; and they are happy to add, that the 
present Report will present to its worthy support- 
ers, continued and additional instances of the prac- 
ticability of its designs, and the success of its ope- 
rations. 

" In the good work of establishing Schools for 
the education of the children of the poor, in Ire- 
land, the Committee had proceeded so far, at the 
time of holding the last General Meeting, as to re- 
port, that the number of Schools exceeded three 
hundred ; and that the children and adults edu- 
cated therein were upwards of nineteen thousand. 
They have now the pleasure to state, that, by the 
annual return which was made up to Christmas 



last, the number of Schools is 347 ; and the chil- 
dren and adults educated therein, are 27,776. 

" Such is the endearing and interesting specta- 
cle which the present state of the labours of the 
Society presents to its benevolent supporters. Every 
Parent, every Christian, and every Briton must 
rejoice in the accomplishment of so much good to 
Ireland, where it was so peculiarly needed ; and it 
is of such a nature, and is in such a course of ex- 
tension and increase, as to afford the most reasona- 
ble expectations of enlarged and permanent bene- 
fits to that part of the United Kingdom. 

"The Committee are happy to state, that the 
regulation for the conduct of the Schools are in 
full operation, and that the Inspectors are active 
and circumspect. The progress of the children in 
learning to read, and in committing the Scriptures 
to memory, and the interest that even Catholic pa- 
rents feel in having their little ones appear with 



APPENDIX. 



359 



credit at the inspections, are truly gratifying. The 
attention of the Masters, in general, to the import 
of the sacred word, is pleasingly on the increase : 
and among such as have had their own under- 
standings enlightened and informed, there exists a 
spirit of emulation to have their pupils excel in 
giving suitable answers to questions relating to the 
meaning of the passages wdiich they repeat. 

" These instances evidently show the immediate 
and direct influence which the Schools produce on 
the minds of the parents of the children who are 
educated therein ; and that an emanation of Scrip- 
ture light, and a portion of religious interest of the 
most important and useful kind, are introduced into 
the humble cottages of the poor. These now have 
some ' light in their dwelling,' in the midst of sur- 
rounding darkness and superstition ; which, how- 
ever, begins to be penetrated with the beams of 
Divine truth, and to be impressed with that word 
which is ' quick and powerful, and a discerner of 
the thoughts and intents of the heart.' On this 
interesting subject, a most valuable correspondent 
of the Committee thus writes : — 

"From the many applications I receive from in- 
dividuals from different parts of the country for 
Bibles and Testaments, there is strong evidence to 
the spreading of religious inquiry among the mass 
of the people. Many of them come from places 
remote from any of the Schools ; but I always find 
that anxiety for the Scriptures has been excited by 
converse with some who have been pupils therein, 
who have lived in the neighbourhood of the Schools, 
or have been in some other ways immediately or 
remotely connected with them. 

"Could the moral and religious improvement of 
the human mind be as easily discovered as the 
agricultural improvement of a country, those nu- 
merous districts where the Schools have been for 
any time established, would be found to exhibit a 
striking contrast to those wherein they have not 
yet taken place. While these would be seen in all 
the nakedness of sterility, or fruitful only in the 
production of noxious weeds ; in the other it would 
appear that in a great degree the fallow ground has 
been broken up, the good seed sown and in a state 
of vegetation, waiting for the early and latter rain ; 
in many, the appearance of a healthful crop would 
gladden the eye, and in some, the fields would ap- 
pear already white unto the harvest. 

"The great increase in the number of the 
Schools; the amazing anxiety for the Scriptures 
which they have been the means of exciting in 
every district ; the increasing demand for Evening 
Schools for the instruction of the adult popula- 
tion, —all pressingly call for such a supply of Bibles 
and Testaments as I am unable to meet. Were 
the wonders doing in this country by the instru- 
mentality of the Hibernian Society fully known in 
England, and their importance rightly appreciated, 
no Society would be found deserving of greater 
support." 

" The Committee continue to give the greatest 
encouragement to the instruction of adults in the 
vicinity of the Schools ; and they receive the most 
pleasing accounts of the efficacy of the word of 
God in the enlightening of the minds of those who 
probably would never have had an opportunity of 
reading the Scriptures, or of hearing them read, 
had it not been for the free Schools which this So- 
ciety has established, and for the numerous copies 
of the Divine word which it has industriously cir- 
culated. Indeed, the Visitors to the Schools per- 
ceive and acknowledge, that, were it not for the 
labours of this Institution^ it would be impossible 



for the Bible Societies to get the Scriptures into the 
hands of the Catholics , the great mass of the popu- 
lation of Ireland. 

" The formation of Irish classes in the Schools 
which are appropriate thereto, continues to be se- 
dulously promoted. An additional allowance has 
been granted to the Masters for their Irish Testa- 
ment classes ; and this has powerfully operated to 
increase the demand for Irish Testaments, both in 
the day Schools, and also in those which are held 
in the evening, for teaching the adults. 

"The Committee could adduce additional in- 
stances of approbation and support from some of 
the Catholic Clergy, both of the Society's Schools, 
and of its exertions to circulate the Scriptures ; but 
the limits of this Report will not permit an en- 
largement on this pleasing and interesting subject. 
If, however, the views and object of this Institu- 
tion have only commended themselves as yet to a 
small part of the Catholic body, the Committee are 
happy to state, that, in the Protestant community, 
the high importance of the Hibernian Society in- 
creasingly arrests public attention ; that the de- 
mands tor Schools in almost every district are more 
numerous than can be attended to, and that in 
every place respectable individuals come forward, 
unsolicited, to carry into execution the benevolent 
designs of the Society. And here it is very ap- 
propriate and gratefufjo observe, that to the Clergy 
of the Established Church who have afforded their 
patronage to the Schools, and have condescended 
to act as Visitors, the Society are under verv great 
obligations ; and particularly to an excellent Dig- 
nitary of that Church, who has always entered into 
the views of the Society with a liberal mind, has 
furthered them with continued assiduity, and has 
recently from the pulpit pleaded the cause of the 
Institution, and thereby added to its celebrity and 
support. This last service called for the official 
thanks of the Committee. They were transmitted 
by the treasurer, and the answer which has been 
received from this estimable personage is so charac- 
teristic of his piety and philanthropy, and so highly 
honourable to the Hibernian Society, that it would 
be unsuitable and injurious to withhold the follow- 
ing extract: — 

"I have received your very kind letter, commu- 
nicating the thanks of the Committee of the Hi- 
bernian Society of London, to me, for the sermon 
I preached in Sligo Church on their behalf ; and 
for other services which the Committee are pleased 
kindly to notice, as rendered by me to the Schools 
under their patronage. Whatever little I have 
been enabled to do, I have felt that therein I have 
been doing the best service I could to this quarter 
of my poor benighted country. And I thank God, 
that I see the exertions which the Society has made 
already (and they have been great) so largely owned 
of him. I am persuaded, that nothing is calculated 
so much, under the Divine blessing, to dispel the 
gross darkness that has covered this land, for so 
many ages, as such a system of general scriptural 
education, as that adopted by your Society. And 
I have to acknowledge that the establishment of 
the Society's Schools in the vicinity of my minis- 
terial duties, has proved the happy instrument of a 
great enlargement of utterance and usefulness to 
me ; and never more did I experience this enlarge- 
ment, than on the late occasion of my visiting 
Sligo, to advocate the cause of the Society. If I 
have done this with any degree of success, I desire 
to thank, and give glory to God. Surely you well 
deserve the cordial co-operation of the Irish pub- 
lic; and you call forth from Irish Christians, 



360 



APPENDIX. 



thanksgivings to God for the grace bestowed upon 
you." 

It has been noticed that the number of children 
and adults taught in the Society's Schools has in- 
creased, in the course of the last year, from 19,000 
to 27,000, and that requisitions for additional 
Schools are far more numerous than can be com- 
plied with. It will also be remembered, that at the 
time of holding the last Annual Meeting, the ex- 
penditure of the Society had exceeded its income 
upwards of 6001. In this conflict of an enlarged 
establishment and a deficient revenue, of encourag- 
ing prospects and limited means, the Committee 
have endeavoured to increase the funds of the So- 
ciety, and to lessen the expense of its future ope- 
rations. To obtain the first-mentioned benefit, 
they have transmitted a circular letter to Ministers 
generally, in town and country, describing the state 
of the Institution, as to its importance, its useful- 
ness, and its necessities; urging them to interest 
themselves in procuring subscriptions and dona- 
tions : and particularly and earnestly requesting 
them to incorporate it amongst those other excel- 
lent Societies, for the assistance of which Auxi- 
liary Institutions have in so many places been 
established. These dispense their tributary streams 
with fertilizing and invigorating energies ; and if 
in their course, they were permitted to visit and 
enrich the Hibernian Society, Ireland would 
greatly benefit by the diffusion, and would ar- 
dently bless her pious and liberal benefactors. — 
With regard to lessening the expense of future 
operations, the Committee have endeavoured to 
connect the formation of new Schools, with an 
Annual Subscription ; and, in this way, it is to be 
hoped, that many of the resident noblemen and 
gentlemen in Ireland, will assist in carrying into 
effect the designs, and in relieving the funds, of 
the Hibernian Society. 

It has been truly gratifying to the Committee, to 
state the considerable increase of the Society's 
Schools, and the evident utility and success of its 
operations ; but it is with regret that they view the 
inadequacy of the funds to defray the necessary 
expenses of the Institution ; and with anxiety that 
they contrast the openings of Providence which 
present themselves, for exertions of a very exten- 
sive nature — in the highest degree important, and 
promising the most happy results, — with the alarm- 
ing deficiency of pecuniary means for following those 
providential leadings, with the energies and the 
hopes which they are so well calculated to inspire. 

With respect to the progress which has already 
been made in fulfilling the purposes for which the 
Society was formed, it may be observed, — that its 
advances in extension of operations, and its suc- 
cess by its means and instruments, have proved in 
the highest degree pleasing and satisfactory. It 
was not till about the year 1809, that Schools were 
established in Ireland, under the patronage of the 
Hibernian Society ; from which period to the pre- 
sent time, these establishments have so increased 
as to include upwards of 27,000 pupils. And when 
it is considered that the Schools have been formed, 
and the children collected therein, for the purpose 
of imparting the benefits of education to the lower 
classes of the people, who had neither the means 
nor the hopes of these benefits from any other 
quarter ; and also of diffusing the blessings of pure 
Scriptural instruction among those to whom the 



policy and the power of their superiors forbid the 
introduction of these blessings ; surely it must be 
acknowledged, that the designs and operations of 
the Society have been appropriate and efficient, 
for the removal of the greatest of evils, and for the 
production of the most essential and important 
good. In fact, the gradually increasing operations 
of the Society have greatly exceeded its progres- 
sive means of support ; its designs have been truly 
laudable and excellent, its means and instruments 
well adapted to execute them, and the sphere of 
its labours admirably calculated to gratify British 
benevolence, and to reward Christian zeal. Under 
all these circumstances, it is a matter of surprise 
and regret, that the income of this Institution, 
arising from annual subscriptions, does not amount 
to 500Z ; whilst its annual expenditure is upwards 
of 4,000Z. The deficiency has, in part, been sup- 
plied by donations and collections, and also by as- 
sistance received from Auxiliary Societies ; but the 
arrears at length amount to a sum (1,605Z.) which 
must have become burdensome to the Treasurer, 
embarrassing to the Committee, and prejudicial to 
the intere st of the Society. 

To relieve it of this debt, is the anxious wish of 
its Committee, and must be the earnest desire of its 
Members. And when it is considered, as having 
arisen out of the actual prosperity of the cause, 
which the Society was established to promote, and 
from the enlarged and successful exertions which 
it has been enabled to prosecute, the Committee 
are persuaded that every Member of the Institu- 
tion will feel it to be his duty and his pleasure, to 
unite with them, in immediate and earnest efforts, 
to replenish and increase its funds, in order that 
the Society may be relieved from the pressure 
of present obligations, and be capacitated to enter 
on a course of additional labours, and of extensive 
and hopeful exertions. 

That the operations of this Society should be 
stationary whilst the most fair and promising 
prospects open for their exertions ; that the bene- 
fits of education which it has conferred, and the 
blessings of Scriptural instruction, which it has 
imparted, should be circumscribed comparatively 
to a few, while hundreds of thousands are perish- 
ing for lack of knowledge, is a state of things, 
which must wound the feelings, and disappoint the 
hopes, of the supporters of the Institution. 

That a work so truly important, that objects so 
highly benevolent, and that efforts so eminently 
successful, will be impeded or paralyzed for want 
of pecuniary support, the Committee cannot be- 
lieve. For the appeal to Christian principles, feel- 
ings, and generosity, is made, in the present in- 
stance, to the religious public in Great Britain; 
whose noble liberality supports efforts of compas- 
sion and mercy, amongst the ignorant and the 
miserable, in the most distant parts of the world. 
And this liberality will surely not be withheld 
from the Hibernian Society, whose labours are di- 
rected to remove the afflicting spectacle of igno- 
rance, superstition, immorality, and mental degra- 
dation, which the lower classes of the community 
in Ireland exhibit; to place our "brethren accord- 
ing to the flesh," our fellow subjects, on the same 
high ground of moral and national advantage on 
which we stand, and thus to promote their best 
interest, their highest happiness, and their eternal 
salvation. 



CRUELTY TO AXIMALS 5 



A SERMON 

PREACHED IN EDINBURGH, ON THE 5th OF MARCH, 1826. 



A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast." — Prov. xii. 10. 



The word regard is of two-fold signifi- 
cation, and may either apply to the moral 
or to the intellectual part of our nature. 
In the one application, the intellectual, it is 
the regard of attention. In the other, the 
moral, it is the regard of sympathy, or 
kindness. We do not marvel at this com- 
mon term having been applied to two dif- 
ferent things; for, in truth, they are most 
intimately associated ; and the faculty by 
which a transition is accomplished from 
the one to the other, may be considered as 
the intermediate link between the mind 
and the heart. It is the faculty by which 
certain objects become present to the mind; 
and then the emotions are awakened in 
the heart, which correspond to these ob- 
jects. The two act and re-act upon each 
other. But as we must not dwell too long 
on generalities, we shall satisfy ourselves 
with stating, that as, on the one hand, if 
the heart be very alive to any peculiar set 
of emotions, this of itself is a predisposing 
cause why the mind should be very alert 
in singling out the peculiar objects which 
excite them; so, on the other hand, that 
the emotions be specifically felt, the objects 
must be specifically noticed : and thus it is, 
that the faculty of attention — a faculty at 
the bidding of the will, and for the exer- 
cise of which, therefore, man is responsible 
— is of such mighty and commanding in- 
fluence upon the sensibilities of our nature; 
insomuch that, if the regard of attention 
could be fastened strongly and singly on 
the pain of a suffering creature as its ob- 
ject, we believe that no other emotion 
than the regard of sympathy or compassion 
would in any instance be awakened by it. 

So much is this indeed the case — so sure 
is this alliance between the mind simply 
noticing the distress of a sentient creature, 
and the heart being sympathetically affect- 
ed by it, that Nature seems to have limited 
and circumscribed our power of noticing, 
and just for the purpose of shielding us 
from the pain of too pungent, or too inces- 
sant a sympathy. And, accordingly, one 
2 Z 



of the exquisite adaptations in the mechan- 
ism of the human frame may be observed 
in the very imperfection of the human fa- 
culties. The most frequently adduced ex- 
ample of this is, the limited power of that 
organ which is the instrument of vision. 
The imagination is, that, did man look out 
upon Nature with microscopic eye, so that 
many of those wonders which now lie hid 
in deep obscurity should henceforth start 
into open revelation, and be hourly and 
habitually obtruded upon his gaze, then, 
with his present sensibilities exposed to the 
torture and the disturbance of a perpetual 
and most agonizing offence from all possi- 
ble quarters of contemplation, he would be 
utterly incapacitated for the movements of 
familiar and ordinary life. Did he actually 
see, for example, in the beverage which he 
carried to his lips, that teeming multitude 
of sentient and susceptible creatures where- 
with it is pervaded, or if it were alike pal- 
pable to his senses, that, by the crush of 
every footstep, he inflicted upon thousands 
the pangs of dissolution, then it is appre- 
hended that, to man as he is, the world 
would be insupportable. For, beside the 
irritation of that sore and incessant disgust, 
from which the power of escaping was de- 
nied to him, there would be another, and a 
most intense suffering, in the constantly 
aggrieved tenderness of his nature. Or if 
by the operation of habit, all these sensi- 
bilities were blunted, and he could behold 
unmoved the ruin and the wretchedness 
that he strewed along his path, then he 
might attain to comfort in the midst of 
this surrounding annoyance; but what 
would become of character in the utter ex- 
tinction of. all the delicacies and the feel- 
ings which wont to adorn it? Such a 
change in his physical, could only be ad- 
justed to his happiness, by a reverse and 
most melancholy change in the moral 
constitution of his nature. The fineness of 
his bodily perceptions would need to be 
compensated by a proportional hardness 
in the temperament of his soul. With his 

361 



362 ON CRUELTY 

now finer sensations, there behooved to be 
duller and coarser sensibilities ; and to as- 
sort that eye, whose retina had become 
tenfold more soft and susceptible than be- 
fore, its owner must be furnished with a 
heart of tenfold rigidity, and a nervous 
system as impregnable as iron. — that he 
might walk forth in ease and in compla- 
cency, while the conscious destroyer of 
millions by his tread, or the conscious de- 
vourer of a whole living and suffering he- 
catomb with every morsel of the sustenance 
which upheld him. 

But, for the purpose of a nice and deli- 
cate balance between the actual feelings 
and faculties of our nature, something more 
is necessary than the imperfection of our 
outward senses. The bluntness of man's 
visual organs serves, no doubt, as a screen 
of protection against both the nausea and 
the horror of those many spectacles, which 
would else have either distressed or dete- 
riorated the sensibilities that belong to him. 
But then, by help of the microscope, this 
screen can be occasionally lifted up; and 
what the eye then saw, the memory might 
retain, and the imagination might dwell 
upon, and the associating faculty might 
both constantly and vividly suggest; and 
thus, even in the absence of every provoca- 
tive from without, the heart might be sub- 
jected either to a perpetual agitation, or a 
perpetual annoyance, by the meddling im- 
portunity of certain powers and activities 
which are within. It is not, therefore, an 
adequate defence of our species, against a 
very sore and hurtful molestation, that 
there should be a certain physical incapa- 
city in our senses. There must, further- 
more, be a certain physical inertness in 
our reflective faculties. In virtue of the 
former it is, that so many painful or dis- 
gusting objects are kept out of sight. But 
it seems indispensable to our happy or even 
tolerable existence, that, in virtue of the 
latter, these objects, when out of sight, 
should be also out of mind. In the one 
way, they lose their power to offend as ob- 
jects of outward observation. In the other 
way, their power to haunt and to harass, 
by means of inward reflection, is also taken 
away. For the first purpose, Nature has 
struck with a certain impotency the organs 
of our material framework. For the se- 
cond, she has infused, as it were, an opiate 
into the recesses of our mental economy, 
and made it of sufficient strength and seda- 
tive virtue for the needful tranquillity of 
man, and for upholding that average en- 
joyment in the midst both of agony and of 
loathsomeness, which either senses more 
acute, or a spirit more wakeful, must have 
effectually dissipated. It is to some such 
provision too, we think, that much of the 
heart's purity, as well as much of its ten- 
derness is owing; and it is well that the 



TO ANIMALS, 

thoughts of the spirit should be kept, 
though even by the weight of its own 
lethargy, from too busy a converse with 
objects which are alike offensive or alike 
hazardous to both. 

It is more properly with the second of 
these adaptations than the first, that our 
argument has to do — with the inertness of 
our reflective faculties, rather than with 
the incapacity of our senses. It is in be- 
half of animals, and not of animalculae, 
that we are called upon to address you — 
not of that countless swarm, the agonies of 
whose destruction are shrouded from ob- 
servation by the vail upon the sight ; but 
of those creatures who move on the face 
of the open perspective before us, and not 
as the others in a region of invisibles, and 
yet whose dying agonies are shrouded al- 
most as darkly and as densely from general 
observation, by the vail upon the mind. 
For you will perceive, that in reference to 
the latter vail, and by which it is that 
what is out of sight is also out of mind, its 
purpose is accomplished, whether the ob- 
jects which are disguised by it be without 
the sphere of actual vision, or beneath the 
surface of possible vision. Now it is with- 
out the sphere of your actual, although not 
beneath the surface of your possible vision, 
where are transacted the dreadful mysteries 
of a slaughter-house, and more especially 
those lingering deaths which an animal 
has to undergo for the gratifications of a re- 
fined epicurism. It were surely most de- 
sirable that the duties, if they may be so 
called, of a most revolting trade, were all 
of them got over with the least possible ex- 
pense of suffering ; nor do we ever feel so 
painfully the impression of a lurking can- 
nibalism in our nature, as when we think 
of the intense study which has been given 
to the connexion between modes of killing, 
and the flavour or delicacy of those viands 
which are served up to mild, and pacific, 
and gentle-looking creatures, who form the 
grace and the ornament of our polished so- 
ciety. One is almost tempted, after all, to 
look upon them as so many savages in dis- 
guise; and so, in truth, we should, but for 
the strength of that opiate whose power 
and whose property we have just endea- 
voured to explain ; and in virtue of which, 
the guests of an entertainment are all the 
while most profoundly unconscious of the 
horrors of that preparatory scene which 
went before it. It is not, therefore, that 
there is hypocrisy in these smiles where- 
with they look so benignly to each other. 
It is not that there is deceit in their words 
or their accents of tenderness. The truth 
is, that one shriek of agony, if heard from 
without, would cast most impressive gloom 
over this scene of conviviality; and the 
sight, but for a moment, of one wretched 
creature quivering towards death, would, 



ON CRUELTY 



TO ANIMALS. 



363 



with Gorgon spell, dissipate all the gaieties 
which enlivefied it. But Nature, as it were, 
hath practised most subtle reticence, both 
on the senses and the spirit of her chil- 
dren ; or rather, the Author of Nature hath, 
by the skill of his master hand, instituted 
the harmony of a most exquisite balance 
between the tenderness of the human feel- 
ings and the listlessness of the human fa- 
cullies, so as that, in the mysterious econo- 
my under which we live, he may at once 
provide for the sustenance, and leave entire 
the moral sensibilities of our species. 

But there is a still more wondrous limita- 
tion than this, wherewith he hath bounded 
and beset the faculties of the human spirit. 
You already understand how it is, that the 
sufferings of the lower animals may, when 
out of sight, be out of mind. But more than 
this, these sufferings may be in sight, and 
yet out of mind. This is strikingly exem- 
plified in the sports of the field, in the midst 
of whose varied and animating bustle, that 
cruelty which all along is present to the 
senses, may not, for one moment, have been 
present to the thoughts. There sits a some- 
what ancestral dignity and glory on this 
favourite pastime of joyous old England; 
when the gallant knighthood, and the hearty 
yeomen, and the amateurs or virtuosos of 
the chase, and the full assembled jockeyship 
of half a province, muster together in all 
the pride and pageantry of their great em- 
prize — and the panorama of some noble 
landscape, lighted up with autumnal clear- 
ness from an unclouded heaven, pours fresh 
exhilaration into every blithe and choice 
spirit of the scene — and every adventurous 
heart is braced, and impatient for the hazards 
of the coming enterprise — and even the 
high-breathed coursers catch the general 
sympathy, and seem to fret in all the res- 
tiveness of their yet checked and irritated 
fire, till the echoing horn shall set them at 
liberty — even that horn which is the knell 
of death to some trembling victim, now 
brought forth of its lurking place to the 
delighted gaze, and borne down upon with 
the full and open cry of its ruthless pursuers. 
Be assured that, amid the whole glee and 
fervency of this tumultuous enjoyment, 
there might not, in one single bosom, be 
aught so fiendish as a principle of naked 
and abstract cruelty. The fear which gives 
its lightning speed to the unhappy animal; 
the thickening horrors which, in the pro- 
gress of exhaustion, must gather upon its 
flight; its gradually sinking energies, and, 
at length, the terrible certainty of that de- 
struction which is awaiting it; that piteous 
cry, which the ear can sometimes distin- 
guish amid the deafening clamour of the 
blood-hounds, as they spring exultingly 
upon their prey; the dread massacre and 
dying agonies of a creature so miserably 
torn ; — all this weight of suffering, we ad- 



mit, is not once sympathized with ; but it is 
just because the suffering itself is not once 
thought of. It touches not the sensibilities 
of the heart ; but just because it is never pre- 
sent to the notice of the mind. We allow 
that the hardy followers in the wild romance 
of this occupation, we allow them to be 
reckless of pain; but this is not rejoicing in 
pain. Theirs is not the delight of savage, 
but the apathy of unreflecting creatures. 
They are wholly occupied with the chase 
itself, and its spirit-stirring accompaniments, 
nor bestow one moment's thought on the 
dread violence of that infliction upon sen- 
tient nature which marks its termination. 
It is the spirit of the competition, and it 
alone, which goads onward this hurrying 
career; and even he, who in at the death, 
is foremost in the triumph, although to him 
the death itself is in sight, the agony of its 
wretched siuTerer is wholly out of mind. 

■ We are inclined to carry this principle 
much farther. We are not even sure if, 
within the whole compass of humanity, 
fallen as it is, there be such a thing as de- 
light in suffering, for its own sake. But, 
without hazarding a controversy on this, 
we hold it enough for every practical ob- 
ject, that much, and perhaps the whole of 
this world's cruelty, arises not from the en- 
joyment that is felt in consequence of others' 
pain, but from the enjoyment that is felt in 
spite of it. It is something else in the spec- 
tacle of agony which ministers pleasure 
than the agony itself; and many is the eye 
which glistens with transport at the fray of 
animals met together for their mutual de- 
struction, and which might be brought to 
weep, if, apart from all the excitements of 
such a scene, the anguish of wounded or 
dying creatures w r ere placed nakedly before 
it. Were it strictly analyzed, it would be 
found that the charm, neither of the ancient 
gladiatorships, nor of our modern prize- 
fights, lies in the torture which is thereby 
inflicted; for we should feel the very same 
charm, and look with the very same intent- 
ness, on some doubtful, yet strenuous colli- 
sion, even among the inanimate elements 
of nature— as, when the water and the fire 
contended for mastery, and the inherent 
force of the one was met by a plying and 
a powerful enginery that gave impulse and 
direction to the other. It is even so, when 
the enginery of bones and of muscles comes 
into rivalship ; and every spectator of the 
ring fastens on the spectacle with that iden- 
tical engrossment which he feels in the 
hazards of some doubtful game, or in the 
desperate conflict and effervescence even of 
the altogether mute unconscious elements. 
To him it is little else than a problem in 
dynamics. There is a science connected 
with the fight, wmich has displaced the sen 
sibilities that are connected with its expiring 
moans, its piteous and piercing outcries, its 



364 



ON UKUELTY TO ANIMALS. 



cruel lacerations. In all this, we admit the 
Utter heedlessness of pain ; but we are not 
sure if even yet there be aught so hellishly 
revolting as any positive gratification in the 
pain itself — or whether, even in the lowest 
walks of blackguardism in society, it do not 
also hold, that when sufferings even unto 
death are fully in sight, the pain of these 
sufferings is as fully out of mind. 

But the term science, so strangely applied 
as it has been in the example now quoted, 
reminds us of another variety in this most 
afflicting detail. Even in the purely academic 
walk we read or hear of the most appalling 
cruelties; and the interest of that philosophy 
wherewith they have been associated, has 
been plead in mitigation of them. And just 
as the moral debasement incurred by an act 
of theft is somewhat redeemed, if done by 
one of Science's enamoured worshippers, 
when, overcome by the mere passion of 
connoisseurship, he puts forth his hand on 
some choice specimen of most tempting and 
irresistible peculiarity — even so has a like 
indulgence been extended to certain perpe- 
trators of stoutest and most resolved cruelty; 
and that just because of the halo wherewith 
the glories of intellect and of proud discovery 
have enshrined them. And thus it is, that, 
bent on the scrutiny of nature's laws, there 
are some of our race who have hardihood 
enough to explore and elicit them at the ex- 
pense of dreadest suffering— who can make 
some quaking, some quivering animal, the 
subject of their hapless experiment — who 
can institute a questionary process by which 
to draw out the secrets of its constitution, 
and, like inquisitors of old, extract every 
reply by an instrument of torture — who can 
probe their unfaltering way among the 
vitalities of a system which shrinks, and 
palpitates, and gives forth, at every move- 
ment of their steadfast hand, the pulsations 
of deepest agony ; and all, perhaps, to ascer- 
tain and to classify the phenomena of sen- 
sation, or to measure the tenacity of animal 
life, by the power and exquisiteness of ani- 
mal endurance. And still, it is not because 
of all this wretchedness, but in spite of it, 
that they pursue their barbarous occupation. 
Even here it is possible, that there is nought 
so absolutely Satanic as delight in those suf- 
ferings of which themselves are the inflict- 
ers. That law of emotion by which the 
sight of pain calls forth sy mpathy, may not 
be reversed into an opposite law, by which 
the sight of pain w r ould call forth satisfaction 
or pleasure. The emotion is not reversed — 
it is only overborne, in the play of other 
emotions, called forth by other objects. He 
is intent on the science of those phenomena 
which he investigates, and bethinks not 
himself of the suffering which they involve 
to the unhappy animal. So far from the 
sympathies of his nature being reversed, or 
even annihilated, there is in most cases an 



effort, and of great strenuousness, to keep 
them down ; and his heart is differently af- 
fected from that of other men, just because 
the regards of his mental eye are differently 
pointed from those of other men. The whole 
bent and engagement of his faculties are 
similar to those of another operator who is 
busied with the treatment of a piece of in- 
animate matter, and may almost be said to 
subject it to the torture, when he puts it in 
the intensely heated crucible, or applies to 
it the test, and the various searching opera- 
tions of a laboratory. The one watches 
every change of hue in the substance upon 
which he operates, and waits for the re- 
sponse which is given forth by a spark, or 
an effervescence, or an explosion ; and the 
other, precisely similar to him, watches 
every change of aspect in the suffering or 
dying creature that is before him, and marks 
every symptom of its exhaustion, or sorer 
distress, every throb of renewed anguish, 
every cry, and every look of that pain which 
it can feel, though not articulate; marks 
and considers these in no other light than 
as the exponents of its variously affected 
physiology. But still, could merely the 
same interesting phenomena have been 
evolved without pain, he would like it bet- 
ter. Only he will not be repelled from the 
study of them by pain. Even he would 
have had more comfort in the study of a 
complex automaton, that gave out the same 
results on the same application. Only, he 
will not shrink from the necessary incisions, 
and openings, and separation of parts, al- 
though, instead of a lifeless automaton, it 
should be a sentient and sorely agonized 
animal. So that there is not even with him 
any reversal of the law of sympathy. There 
may be the feebleness, or there may be the 
negation of it. Certain it is, that it has given 
way to other laws of superior force in his 
constitution. And, without imputing to him 
aught so monstrous as the positive love of 
suffering, we may even admit for him a 
hatred of suffering, but that the love of 
science had overborne it. 

In the views that we have now given, and 
which we deem of advantage for the right 
practical treatment of our question, it may 
be conceived that we palliate the atrocious- 
ness of cruelty. It is forgotten, that a charge 
of foulest delinquency may be made up al- 
together of w r ants or of negatives ; and, just 
as the human face, by the mere want of 
some of its features, although there should 
not be any inversion of them, might be an 
object of utter loathsomeness to beholders, 
so the human character, by the mere ab- 
sence of certain habits, or certain sensibili- 
ties, which belong ordinarily and constitu- 
tionally to our species, may be an object of 
utter abomination in society. The want of 
natural affection forms one article of the 
Apostle's indictment against our world ; and 



ON CRUELTY TO ANIMALS. 



3G5 



certain it is, that the total want of it were 
stigma enough for the designation of a 
monster. The mere want of religion, or 
irreligion, is enough to make man an outcast 
from his God. Even to the most barbarous 
of our kind you apply, not the term of anti- 
humanity, but of inhumanity— not the term 
of antisensibility: and yon hold it enough 
for the purpose of branding him for general 
execration, that you convicted him of com- 
plete and total insensibility. He is regaled, 
it is true, by a spectacle of agony — but not 
because of the agony. It is something else, 
therewith associated, which regales him. 
But still he is rightfully the subject of most 
emphatic denunciation, nolabecause regaled 
by, but because regardless of, the agony. 
We do not feel ourselves to be vindicating 
the cruel man, when we affirm it to be not 
altogether certain, whether he rejoices in 
the extinction of life ; for we count it a deep 
atrocity, that, unlike to the righteous man 
of our text, he simply does not regard the 
life of a beast. You may perhaps have been 
accustomed to look upon the negatives of 
character, as making up a sort of neutral or 
midway innocence. But this is a mistake. 
Unfeeling is but a negative quality ; and yet, 
we speak of an unfeeling monster. It is 
thus that even the profound experimental- 
ist, whose delight is not in the torture which 
he inflicts, but in the truth which he elicits 
thereby, may become an object of keenest 
reprobation: not because he was pleased 
with suffering, but simply because he did 
not pity it — not because the object of pain, 
if dwelt upon by him, would be followed 
up by any other emotion than that which 
is experienced by other men, but because, 
intent on the prosecution of another object, 
it was not so dwelt upon. It is found that 
the eclat even of brilliant discovery does 
not shield him from the execrations of a 
public, who can yet convict him of nothing 
more than simply of negatives — of heed- 
lessness, of heartlessness, of looking upon 
the agonies of a sentient creature without 
regard, and therefore without sensibility. 
The true principle of his condemnation is, 
that he ought to have regarded. It is not 
that, in virtue of a different organic struc- 
ture, he feels differently from others, when 
the same simple object is brought to bear 
upon him. But it is, that he resolutely kept 
that object at a distance from his attention, 
or rather, that he steadily kept his attention 
away from the object ; and that, in opposi- 
sition to all the weight of remonstrance 
which lies in the tremours, and the writh- 
ings, and the piteous outcries of agonized 
Nature. Had we obtained for these the re- 
gards of his mind, the relentings of his heart 
might have followed. His is not an anoma- 
lous heart ; and the only way in which he 
can brace it into sternness, is by barricad- 
ing the avenue which leads to it. That fa- 



culty of attention, which might have opened 
the door, through which suffering without 
finds its way to sympathy within, is other- 
wise engaged ; and the precise charge, on 
which either morality can rightfully con- 
demn, or humanity be offended, is, that he 
wills to have it so. 

It may be illustrated by that competition 
of speed which is held, with busy appliance 
of whip and of spur, betwixt animals. A 
similar competition can be imagined be- 
tween steam-carriages, when, either to pre- 
serve the distance which has been gained, 
or to recover the distance which has been 
lost, the respective guides would keep up 
an incessant appliance to the furnace, and 
the safety-valve. Now, the sport and the 
excitement are the same, whether this ap- 
pliance of force be to a dead or a living 
mechanism ; and the enormity of the latter 
does not lie in any direct pleasure which is 
felt in the exhaustion, or the soreness, or, 
finally, in the death of the over-driven ani- 
mal. If these awake any feeling at all in 
the barbarous rider, it is that of pain ; and it is 
either the want or the weakness of this latter 
feeling, and not the presence of its opposite, 
which constitutes him a barbarian. He does 
not rejoice in animal suffering — but it is 
enough to bring down upon him the charge 
of barbarity, that he does not regard it. 

But these introductory remarks, although 
they lead, I do think, to some most im- 
portant suggestions for the management of 
the evil, yet they serve not to abate its ap- 
palling magnitude. Man is the direct agent 
of a wide and continual distress to the lower 
animals, and the question is, Can any me- 
thod be devised for its alleviation ? On this 
subject that scriptural image is strikingly re- 
alized, " The whole inferior creation groan- 
ing and travailing together in pain," because 
of him. It signifies not to the substantive 
amount of the suffering, whether this be 
prompted by the hardness of his heart, or 
only permitted through the heedlessness of 
his mind. In either way it holds true, not 
only that the arch-devourer man stands 
pre-eminent over the fiercest children of the 
wilderness as an animal of prey, but that for 
his lordly and luxurious appetite, as well as 
for his service or merest curiosity and amuse- 
ment, Nature must be ransacked throughout 
all her elements. Rather than forego the 
veriest gratifications of vanity, he will wring 
them from the anguish of wretched and ill- 
fated creatures ; and whether for the indul- 
gence of his barbaric sensuality, or barbaric 
splendour, can stalk paramount over the 
sufferings of that prostrate creation which 
has been placed beneath his feet. That 
beauteous domain whereof he has been con- 
stituted the terrestrial sovereign, gives out 
so many blissful and benignant aspects ; and 
whether we look to its peaceful lakes, or its 
flowery landscapes, or its evening skies, or 



366 ON CRUELTY 

to all that soft attire which overspreads the 
hills and the valleys, lighted up by smiles 
of sweetest sunshine, and where animals 
disport themselves in all the exuberance of 
gaiety — this surely were a more befitting 
scene for the rule of clemency, than for the 
iron rod of a murderous and remorseless 
tyrant. But the present is a mysterious 
world wherein we dwell. It still bears 
much upon its materialism of the impress 
of Paradise. But a breath from the air of 
Pandemonium has gone over its living ge- 
nerations. And so " the fear of man, and 
the dread of man, is now upon every beast 
of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, 
upon all that moveth upon the earth, and 
upon all the fishes of the sea ; into man's 
hands are they delivered: every moving 
thing that liveth is meat for him ; yea, even 
as the green herbs, there have been given 
to him all things." Such is the extent Of 
his jurisdiction, and with most full and 
wanton license has he revelled among its 
privileges. The whole earth labours and is 
in violence because of his cruelties; and, 
from the amphitheatre of sentient Nature, 
there sounds in fancy's ear the bleat of one 
wide and universal suffering, — a dreadful 
homage to the power of Nature's consti- 
tuted lord. 

These sufferings are really felt. The 
beasts of the field are not so many automata 
without sensation, and just so constructed 
as to give forth all the natural signs and 
expressions of it. Nature has not practised 
this universal deception upon our species. 
These poor animals just look, and tremble, 
and give forth the very indications of suf- 
fering that we do. Theirs is the distinct cry 
of pain. Theirs is the unequivocal physiog- 
nomy of pain. They put on the same aspect 
of terror on the demonstrations of a menacing 
blow. They exhibit the same distortions of 
agony after the infliction of it. The bruise, 
or the burn, or the fracture, or the deep 
incision, or the fierce encounter with one 
of equal or superior strength, just affects 
them similarly to ourselves. Their blood 
circulates as ours. They have pulsations 
in various parts of the body like ours. 
They sicken, and they grow feeble with 
age, and, finally, they die just as we do. 
They possess the same feelings ; and what 
exposes them to like suffering from another 
quarter, they possess the same instincts 
with our own species. The lioness robbed 
of her whelps causes the wilderness to ring 
aloud with the proclamation of her wrongs ; 
or the bird whose little household has been 
stolen, fills and saddens all the grove with 
melodies of deepest pathos. All this is pal- 
pable even to the general and unlearned 
eye ; and when the physiologist lays open 
the recesses of their system by means of 
that scalpel, under whose operation they 
just shrink and are convulsed as any living 



TO ANIMALS, 

subject of our own species, there stands 
forth to view the same sentient apparatus, 
and furnished with the same conductors for 
the transmission of feeling to every minut- 
est pore upon the surface. Theirs is un- 
mixed and unmitigated pain — the agonies 
of martyrdom, without the alleviation of 
the hopes and the sentiments, whereof they 
are incapable. When they lay them down 
to die, their only fellowship is with suffer- 
ing, for in the prison-house of their beset 
and bounded faculties, there can no relief 
be afforded by communion with other in- 
terests or other things. The attention does 
not lighten their distress as it does that of 
man, by carryi^ off his spirit from that 
existing pungency and pressure which 
might else be overwhelming. There is but 
room in their mysterious economy for one 
inmate ; and that is, the absorbing sense of 
their own single and concentrated anguish. 
And so in that bed of torment, whereon 
the wounded animal lingers and expires, 
there is an unexplored depth and intensity 
of suffering which the poor dumb animal 
itself cannot tell, and against which it can 
offer no remonstrance ; an untold and un- 
known amount of wretchedness, of which 
no articulate voice gives utterance. But 
there is an eloquence in its silence ; and the 
very shroud which disguises it, only serves 
to aggravate its horrors. 

We now come to the practical treatment 
of this question — to the right method of 
which, we hold the views that are now 
offered to be directly and obviously sub- 
servient. 

First, then, upon this subject, we should 
hold no doubtful casuistry. We should ad- 
vance no pragmatic or controversial doc- 
trine. We should carefully abstain from 
all such ambiguous or questionable posi- 
tions, as the unlawfulness of animal food, 
or the unlawfulness of animal experiments. 
We should not even deem it the right tac- 
tics for this moral warfare, to take up the 
position of the unlawfulness of field-sports, 
or yet the unlawfulness of those competi 
tions, whether of strength or of speed, 
which at one time on the turf, and at an- 
other in the ring, are held forth to the view 
of assembled spectators. We are aware that 
some of these positions are not so ques- 
tionable, yet we should refrain from the 
elaboration of them ; for we hold, that this 
is not the way by which we shall most ef- 
fectually make head against the existing 
cruelties of our land. The moral force by 
which our cause is to be advanced, does not 
lie even in the soundest categories of an 
ethical jurisprudence — and far less in the 
dogmata of any paltry sectarianism. We 
have almost as little inclination for the con- 
troversy which respects animal food, as we 
have for the controversy about the eating 
of blood; and this, wc repeat, is not the 



ON CRUELTY 

way by which the claims of the inferior 
animals are practically to be carried. To 
obtain the regards of man's heart in behalf 
of the lower animals, we should strive to 
draw the regards of his mind towards 
them. We should avail ourselves of the 
close alliance that obtains between the re- 
gards of his attention, and those of his sym- 
pathy. For this purpose, we should im- 
portunately ply him with tha objects of 
suffering, and thus call up/fts respondent 
emotion of sympathy, that among the 
other objects which have hitherto engross- 
ed his attention, and the other desires or 
emotions which have hitherto lorded it 
over the compassion of his nature and over- 
powered it, this last may at length be re- 
stored to its legitimate play, and reinstated 
in all its legitimate pre-eminence over the 
other affections or appetites which belong 
to him. It affords a hopeful view of our 
cause, that so much can be done by the 
mere obtrusive presentation of the object to 
the notice of society. It is a comfort to 
know, that in this benevolent w r arfare we 
have to make head, not so much against 
the cruelty of the public, as against the 
heedlessness of the public ; that to hold 
forth a right view, is the way to call forth 
a right sensibility ; and, that to assail the 
seat of any emotion, our likeliest process is 
to make constant and conspicuous exhibi- 
tion of the object which is fitted to awaken 
it. Our text, taken from the profoundest 
book of experimental wisdom in the world, 
keeps clear of every questionable or ca- 
suistical dogma ; and rests the whole cause 
of the inferior animals on one moral ele- 
ment, which is, in respect of principle, 
and on one practical method, which is, in 
respect of efficacy, unquestionable: "A 
righteous man regardeth the life of his 
beast." Let a man be but righteous in the 
general and obvious sense of the word, and 
let the regard of his attention be but di- 
rected to the case of the inferior animals, 
and then the regard of his sympathy will 
be awakened to the full extent at which it 
is either duteous or desirable. Still it may 
be asked to what extent will the duty go ? 
and our reply is, that we had rather push 
the duty forward than be called upon to de- 
fine the extreme termination of it. Yet 
we do not hesitate to say, that we foresee 
not aught so very extreme as the abolition 
of animal food ; but we do foresee the in- 
definite abridgement of all that cruelty 
which subserves the gratifications of a base 
and ieifish epicurism. We think that a 
christian and humanized society will at 
length lift their prevalent voice, for the 
least possible expense of suffering to all the 
victims of a necessary slaughter — for a 
business of utmost horror being also a 
business of utmost despatch — for the blow, 
in short, of an instant extermination, that 



TO ANIMALS 367 

not one moment might elapse between a 
state of pleasurable existence and a state 
of profound unconsciousness. Again, we 
do not foresee, but with the perfecting of 
the two sciences of anatomy and physio- 
logy, the abolition of animal experiments ; 
but we do foresee a gradual, and, at length, 
a complete abandonment of the experiments 
of illustration, which are at present a thou- 
sand-fold more numerous than the experi- 
ments of humane discovery. 

As to field-sports, we for the present, ab- 
stain from all prophecy, in regard, either to 
their growing disuse, or to the conclusive 
extinction of them. We are quite sure, in 
the mean time, that casuistry upon this 
subject would be altogether powerless ; and 
nothing could be imagined more keenly, or 
more energetically contemptuous, than the 
impatient, the impetuous disdain where- 
with the enamoured votaries of this gay 
and glorious adventure would listen to any 
demonstration of its unlawfulness. We 
shall therefore make no attempt to dogma- 
tise them out of that fond and favourite 
amusement which they prosecute with all 
the intensity of a passion. It is not thus 
that the fascination will be dissipated. And, 
therefore, for the present, we should be in- 
clined to subject the lovers of the chase, 
and the lovers of the prize-fight, to the 
same treatment, even as there exists be- 
tween them, we are afraid, the affinity of 
a certain common or kindred character. 
There is, we have often thought, a kind 
of professional cast, a family likeness, by 
which the devotees of game, and of all sorts 
of stirring or hazardous enterprise admit 
of being recognized ; the hue of a certain 
assimilating quality, although of various 
gradations, from the noted champions of 
the hunt, to the noted champions of the 
ring or of the racing-course ; a certain dash 
of moral outlawry, if I may use the ex- 
pression, among all those children of high 
and heated adventure, that bespeaks them 
a distinct class in society, — a set of wild 
and wayward humourists, who have broken 
them loose from the dull regularities of life, 
and formed themselves into so many trusty 
and sworn brotherhoods, wholly given over 
to frolic, and excitement, and excess, in 
all their varieties. They compose a sepa- 
rate and outstanding public among them- 
selves, nearly arrayed in the same pictu- 
resque habiliments — bearing most distinctly 
upon their countenance the same air of 
recklessness and hardihood — admiring the 
same feats of dexterity or danger — indulg- 
ing the same tastes, even to their very 
literature— members of the same sporting 
society — readers of the same sporting ma- 
gazine, whose strange medley of anecdotes 
gives impressive exhibition of that one and 
pervading characteristic for which we are 
contending ; anecdotes of the chase, and 



368 



ON CRTTELTY TO ANIMALS. 



anecdotes of the high-breathed or bloody 
contest, and anecdotes of the gaming-table, 
and, lastly, anecdotes of the high-way. 
We do not just affirm a precise identity be- 
tween all the specimens or species in this 
very peculiar department of moral history. 
But, to borrow a phrase from natural his- 
tory, we affirm, that there are transition 
processes, by which the one melts, and de- 
moralises, and graduates insensibly into the 
other. What we have now to do with, is 
the cruelty of their respective entertain- 
ments — a cruelty, however, upon which 
we could not assert, even of the very worst 
and most worthless among them, that they 
rejoice in pain, but that they are regardless 
of pain. It is not by the force of a mere 
ethical dictum, in itself, perhaps, unques- 
tionable, that they will be restrained from 
their pursuits. But when transformed by 
the operation of unquestionable principle, 
into righteous and regardful men, they will 
spontaneously abandon them. Meanwhile, 
we try to help forward our cause, by forcing 
upon general regard, those sufferings which 
are now so unheeded and unthought of. 
And we look forward to its final triumph, 
as one of those results that will historically 
ensue, in the train of an awakened and a 
moralized society. 

The institution of a yearly sermon against 
cruelty to animals, is of itself a likely 
enough expedient, that might at least be of 
some auxiliary operation, along with other 
and more general causes, towards such an 
awakening. It is not by one, but by many 
successive appeals, that the cause of justice 
and mercy to the brute creation will at 
length be practically carried. On this sub- 
ject I cannot, within the limits of a single 
address, pretend to aught like a full or a 
finished demonstration. This might require 
not one, but a whole century of sermons ; 
and many therefore are the topics which 
necessarily I must bequeath to my succes- 
sors, in this warfare against the listlessness 
and apathy of the public. And, beside the 
force and the impression of new topics, if 
there be any truth in our doctrine, there is 
a mighty advantage gained upon this sub- 
ject of all others by the repetition of old 
topics. It is a subject on wiiich the pub- 
lic do not require so much to be instruct- 
ed, as to be reminded ; to have the re- 
gard of their attention directed again and 
again to the sufferings of poor helpless 
creatures, that the regard of their sympathy 
might at length be effectually obtained for 
them. This then is a cause to which the 
institution of an anniversary pleading in its 
favour, is most precisely and peculiarly 
adapted. And besides, we must confess, in the 
general, our partiality for a scheme that has 
originated the Boyle, and the Bampton, and 
the Warburtonian lectureships of England, 
with all the valuable authorship which has 



proceeded from them. An endowment for 
an annual discourse upon a given theme, is, 
we believe, a novelty in Scotland j though 
it is to similar institutions that much of the 
best sacred and theological literature of our 
sister country is owing. We should rejoice 
if, in this our comparatively meagre and 
unbeneficed land, both these themes and 
these endowments were multiplied. We 
recommend this as a fit species of charity 
for the munificence of wealthy individuals. 
Whatever their selected argument shall be, 
whether that of cruelty to animals, or some 
one evidence of our faith, or the defence and 
illustration of a doctrine, or any distinct 
method of Christian philanthropy for the 
moral regeneration of our species, or aught 
else of those innumerable topics that lie 
situated within the reach and ample domain 
of that revelation which God has made to 
our world— we feel assured that such a 
movement must be responded to with bene- 
ficial effect, both by the gifted pastors of 
our Church, and by the aspiring youths of 
greatest power or greatest promise among 
its candidates. Such institutions as these 
would help to quicken the energies of our 
establishment ; and through means of a 
sustained and reiterated effort, directed to 
some one great lesson, whether in theology 
or morals, they might impress, and that 
more deeply every year, some specific and 
most salutary amelioration on the princi- 
ples or the practices of general society. 

Yet ye are loath to quit our subject with- 
out one appeal more in behalf of those poor 
sufferers, who, unable to advocate their 
own cause, possess, on that very account, 
a more imperative claim on the exertions 
of him who now stands as their advocate 
before you. 

And first, it may have been felt that, by 
the way in which we have attempted to 
resolve cruelty into its elements, we instead 
of launching rebuke against it, have only 
devised a palliation for its gross and shock- 
ing enormity. But it is not so. It is true, 
we count the enormity to lie mainly in the 
heedlessness of pain; but then we charge 
this foully and flagrantly enormous thing, 
not on the mere desperadoes and barbarians 
of our land, but on the men and the women 
of general, and even of cultivated and high- 
bred society. Instead of stating cruelty to 
be what it is not, and then confining the 
imputation of it to the outcast few, we hold 
it better, and practically far more impor- 
tant, to state what cruelty really is, and then 
fasten the imputation of it on the common- 
place and the companionable many. Those 
outcasts to whom you would restrict the 
condemnation, are not at present within 
the reach of our voice. But you are ; and 
it lies with you to confer a ten-fold greater 
boon on the inferior creation, than if all 
barbarous sports, and all bloody experi- 



ON CRUELTY TO ANIMALS 



369 



ments were forthwith put an end to. It is 

at the bidding of your collective will to save 
those countless myriads who are brought to 
the regular and the daily slaughter, all the 
difference between a gradual and an instant 
death. And there is a practice realized in 
every-day life, which you can put down 
— a practice which strongly reminds us of a 
ruder age that has long gone by ; — when 
even beauteous and high-born ladies could 
partake in the dance, and the song, and the 
festive chivalry of barbaric castles, unmind- 
ful of all the piteous and the pining agony 
of dungeoned prisoners below. We charge 
a like unmindfulness on the present gene- 
ration. We know not whether those wretch- 
ed animals whose still sentient frameworks 
are under process of ingenious manufacture 
for the epicurism or the splendour of your 
coming entertainment, — we know not whe- 
ther they are now dying by inches in your 
own subterranean keeps, or through the 
subdivided industry of our commercial age, 
are now suffering all the horrors of their 
protracted agony, in the prison-house of 
some distant street where this dreadful 
trade is carried on. But truly it matters 
nought to our argument, ye heedless sons 
and daughters of gaiety ! We speak not of 
the daily thousands who have to die that 
man may live ; but of those thousands who 
have to die more painfully, just that man 
may live more luxuriously. We speak to 
you of the art and the mystery of the kill- 
ing trade — from which it would appear, 
that not alone the delicacy of the food, but 
even its appearance, is, among the connois- 
seurs of a refined epicurism, the matter of 
skilful and scientific computation. There 
is a sequence, it would appear — there is a 
sequence between an exquisite death, and 
an exquisite or a beautiful preparation of 
cookery ; and just in the ordinary way that 
art avails herself of the other sequences of 
philosophy, — the first term is made sure, 
that the second term might, according to 
the metaphysic order of causation, follow 
in its train. And hence, we are given to 
understand, hence the cold-blooded ingenui- 
ties of that previous and preparatory tor- 
ture which oft is undergone, both that man 
might be feasted with a finer relish, and 
that the eyes of man might be feasted and 
regaled with a finer spectacle. The atroci- 
ties of a Majendie have been blazoned be- 
fore the eye of a British public ; but this is 
worse in the fearful extent and magnitude 
of the evil — truly worse than a thousand 
Majendies. His is a cruel luxury, but it is the 
luxury of intellect. Yours is both a cruel 
and a sensual luxury : and you have posi- 
tively nought to plead for it but the most 
worthless and ignoble appetites of our nature. 

But, secondly, and if possible to secure 
your kindness for our cause, let me, in the 
act of drawing these lengthened observa- 
3 A 



tions to a close, offer to your notice the 
bright and the beautiful side of it. I would 
bid you think of all that fond and pleasant 
imagery, which is associated even with the 
lower animals, when they become the ob- 
jects of a benevolent care, which at length 
ripens into a strong and cherished affection 
for them — as when the worn-out hunter is 
permitted to graze, and be still the favourite 
of all the domestics through the remainder 
of his life ; or the old and shaggy house- 
dog, that has now ceased to be serviceable, 
is nevertheless sure of its regular meals, and 
a decent funeral ; or when an adopted in- 
mate of the household is claimed as pro- 
perty, or as the object of decided partiality, 
by some one or other of the children ; or, 
finally, when in the warmth and comfort of 
the evening fire, one or more of these home 
animals take their part in the living groupe 
that is around it, and their very presence 
serves to complete the picture of a blissful 
and smiling family. Such relationships 
with the inferior creatures, supply many of 
our finest associations of tenderness, and 
give, even to the heart of man, some of its 
simplest yet sweetest enjoyments. He even 
can find in these some compensation for the 
dread and the disquietude wherewith his 
bosom is agitated amid the fiery conflicts 
of infuriated men. When he retires from 
the stormy element of debate, and exchanges, 
for the vindictive glare, and the hideous dis- 
cords of that outcry which he encounters 
among his fellows, — when these are ex- 
changed for the honest welcome and the 
guileless regards of those creatures who 
gambol at his feet, he feels that even in the 
society of the brutes, in whose hearts there 
is neither care nor controversy, he can sur- 
round himself with a better atmosphere far, 
than in that which he breathes among the 
companionships of his own species. Here 
he can rest himself from the fatigues of that 
moral tempest which has beat upon him so 
violently ; and, in the play of kindliness 
with these poor irrationals, his spirit can 
forget for awhile all the injustice and fe- 
rocity of their boasted lords. 

But this is only saying, that our subject 
is connected with the pleasures of senti- 
ment. And therefore, in the third and last 
place, we have to offer it as our concluding 
observation, that it is also connected with 
the principles of deepest sacredness. It may 
be thought by some that we have wasted 
the whole of this Sabbath morn, on what 
may be ranked among but the lesser morali- 
ties of human conduct. But there is one 
aspect, in which it may be regarded as more 
profoundly and more peculiarly religious 
than any one virtue which reciprocates, or 
is of mutual operation among the fellows 
of the same species. It is a virtue which 
oversteps, as it were, the limits of a species, 
and which, in this instance, prompts a de- 



370 



ON CRUELTY TO ANIMALS. 



scending movement, on onr part, of righ- 
teousness and mercy towards those who 
have an inferior place to ourselves in the 
scale of creation. The lesson of this day is 
not the circulation of benevolence within 
the limits of one species. It is the trans- 
mission of it from one species to another. 
The first is but the charity of a world. The 
second is the charity of a universe. Had 
there been no such charity, no descending 
current of love and of liberality from spe- 
cies to species, what, I ask, should have 
become of ourselves? Whence have we 
learned this attitude of lofty unconcern 
about the creatures who are beneath us? 
Not from those ministering spirits who wait 
upon the heirs of salvation. Not from those 
angels who circle the throne of heaven, and 
make all its arches ring with joyful har- 
mony, when but one sinner of this prostrate 
world turns his footsteps towards them. 
Not from that mighty and mysterious visi- 
tant, who unrobed Him of all his glories, 
and bowed down his head unto the sacri- 
fice, and still, from the seat of his now ex- 
alted mediatorship, pours forth his interces- 
sions and his calls in behalf of the race he 
died for. Finally, not from the eternal 
Father of all, in the pavilion of whose resi- 
dence there is the golden treasury of all 
those bounties and beatitudes that roll over 
the face of nature, and from the footstool of 
whose empyreal throne there reaches a 
golden chain of providence to the very 
humblest of his family. He who hath 
given his angels charge concerning us, 
means that the tide of beneficence should 
pass from order to order, through all the 
ranks of his magnificent creation ; and we 
ask, is it with man that this goodly provi- 
sion is to terminate— or shall he, with all 
his sensations of present blessedness, and 
all his visions of future glory let down upon 
him from above, shall he turn him selfishly 



and scornfully away from the rights of 

those creatures whom God hath placed in 
dependence under him ? We know that the 
cause of poor and unfriended animals has 
many an obstacle to contend with in the dif- 
ficulties or the delicacies of legislation. But 
we shall ever deny that it is a theme be- 
neath the dignity of legislation ; or that 
the nobles and the senators of our land 
stoop to a cause which is degrading, when, 
in the imitation of heaven's high clemency, 
they look benignly downward on these 
humble and helpless sufferers. Ere we 
can admit this, we must forget the whole 
economy of our blessed gospel. We must 
forget the legislations and the cares of 
the upper sanctuary in behalf of our fallen 
species. We must forget that the redemp- 
tion of our world is suspended on an act of 
jurisprudence which angels desired to look 
into, and for effectuating which, the earth 
we tread upon was honoured by the foot- 
steps, not of angel or of archangel, but of 
God manifest in the flesh. The distance 
upward between us and that mysterious 
Being, who let himself down from heaven's 
high concave upon our lowdy platform, sur- 
passes by infinity the distance downward 
between us and everything that breathes. 
And He bowed himself thus far for the pur- 
pose of an example, as well as for the pur- 
pose of an expiation; that every Christian 
might extend his compassionate regards 
over the whole of sentient and suffering na- 
ture. The high court of Parliament is not 
degraded by its attentions and its cares in 
behalf of inferior creatures, else the Sanc- 
tuary of Heaven has been degraded by its 
counsels in behalf of the world we occupy, 
and in the execution of which the Lord of 
heaven himself relinquished the highest 
seat of glory in the universe, and went 
forth to sojourn for a time on this outcast 
and accursed territory. 



SERMONS 

PREACHED IN ST. JOHN'S CHURCH, 
GLASGOW. 



PREFACE. 

The following Sermons are of too miscellaneous a character to be arranged ac- 
cording to the succession of their topics, and they are, therefore, presented to the 
reader as so many compositions that are almost wholly independent of each other. 

Two of the Sermons treat of Predestination, and the Sin against the Holy Ghost. 
There are topics of a highly speculative character, in the system of Christian 
Doctrine, which it is exceedingly difficult to manage, without interesting the 
curiosity rather than the conscience of the reader. And yet, it is from their fitness 
of application to the conscience, that they derive their chief right to appear in a 
volume of Sermons ; and I should not have ventured any publication upon either 
of these doctrines, did I not think them capable of being so treated as to subserve 
the great interests of practical godliness. 

The Sermons all relate to topics that I hold to be strictly congregational, with 
the exception of the thirteenth and fourteenth in the volume, which belong rather 
to Christian Economies, than to Christian Theology — to the (i outer things of the 
house of God," rather than to the thiegs of the sanctuary, or the intimacies of the 
spiritual life. I, perhaps, ought therefore to apologize for the appearance of these 
two in a volume of Congregational Sermons, and yet I have been led by experi- 
ence to feel the religious importance of their subject, and I think that much injury 
has been sustained by the souls of our people, from the neglect of obvious princi- 
ples both in the business of education, and in the business of public charity. I 
have, however, more comfort in discussing this argument from the press, than 
from the pulpit, which ought to be kept apart for loftier themes, and which seems 
to suffer a sort of desecration when employed as the vehicle for any thing else 
than the overtures of pardon to the sinner, and the hopes and duties of the believer. 



SERMON I. 

The Constancy of God in His Works an Argument for the Faithfulness of Gnd in 

His Word. 

" For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. Thy faithfulness is unto all generations : thou hast esta- 
blished the earth, and it abideth. They continue this day according to thy ordinances: for all are thy 
servants."— Psalm cxix. 89, 90, 91. 



In these verses there is affirmed to be an 
analogy between the word of God and the 
works of God. It is said of his word, that it 
is settled in heaven, and that it sustains its 
faithfulness from one generation to another. 
It is said of his works, and more especially 
of those that are immediately around us, 
even of the earth which we inhabit, that as 
it was established at the first so it abideth 



afterwards. And then, as if to perfect the 
assimilation between them, it is said of both 
in the 91st verse, " They continue this day 
according to thine ordinances, for all are 
thy servants;" thereby identifying the sure- 
ness of that word which proceeded from his 
lips, with the unfailing constancy of that 
Nature which was formed and is upholden 
by his hands. 

371 



372 



THE CONSTANCY OF GOD IN HIS WORKS 



[SERM. 



The constancy of Nature is taught by 
universal experience, and even strikes the 
popular eye as the most characteristic of 
those features which have been impressed 
upon her. It may need the aid of philosophy 
to learn how unvarying Nature is in all her 
processes — how even her seeming anomalies 
can be traced to a law that is inflexible — 
how what might appear at first to be the 
caprices of her waywardness, are, in fact, 
the evolutions of a mechanism that never 
changes — and that the more thoroughly she 
is sifted and put to the test by the interroga- 
tions of the curious, the more certainly will 
they find that she walks by a rule which 
knows no abatement, and perseveres with 
obedient footstep in that even course, from 
which the eye of strictest scrutiny, has never 
yet detected one hair-breadth of deviation. 
It is no longer doubted by men of science, 
that every remaining semblance of irregu- 
larity in the universe is due, not to the 
fickleness of Nature, but to the ignorance 
of man — that her most hidden movements 
are conducted with a uniformity as rigorous 
as fate — that even the fitful agitations of the 
weather have their law and their principle— 
that the intensity of every breeze, and the 
number of drops in every shower, and the 
formation of every cloud, and all the occur- 
ring alternations of storm and sunshine, and 
the endless shiftings of temperature, and 
those tremulous varieties of the air which 
our instruments have enabled us to discover, 
but have not enabled us to explain — that 
still, they follow each other by a method of 
succession, which, though greatly more in- 
tricate, is yet as absolute in itself as the 
order of the seasons, or the mathematical 
courses of astronomy. This is the impres- 
sion of every philosophy "al mind with re- 
gard to Nature, and it is strengthened by 
each new accession that is made to science. 
The more we are acquainted with her, the 
more are we led to recognise her constancy ; 
and to view her as a mighty though com- 
plicated machine, all whose results are sure, 
and all whose workings are invariable. 

But there is enough of patent and palpa- 
ble regularity in Nature, to give also to the 
popular mind, the same impression of her 
constancy. There is a gross and general 
experience that teaches the same lesson, and 
that has lodged in every bosom a kind of 
secure and steadfast confidence in the uni- 
formity of her processes. The very child 
knows and proceeds upon it. He is aware 
of an abiding character and property in the 
elements around him — and has already 
learned as much of the fire, and the water, 
and the food that he eats, and the firm 
ground that he treads upon, and even of the 
gravitation by which he must regulate his 
postures and his movements, as to prove, 
that infant though he be, he is fully initiated 
in the doctrine, that Nature has her laws 



and her ordinances, and that she continueth 
therein. And the proofs of this are ever 
multiplying along the journey of human 
observation: insomuch, that when we come 
to manhood, we read of Nature's constancy 
throughout every department of the visible 
world. It meets us wherever we turn our 
eyes. Both the day and the night bear wit- 
ness to it. The silent revolutions of the 
firmament give it their pure testimony. 
Even those appearances in the heavens, at 
which superstition stood aghast, and ima- 
gined that Nature was on the eve of giving 
way, are the proudest trophies of that sta- 
bility which reigns throughout her pro- 
cesses — of that unswerving consistency 
wherewith she prosecutes all her move- 
ments. And the lesson that is thus held 
forth to us from the heavens above, is re- 
sponded to by the earth below ; just as the 
tides of ocean wait the footsteps of the 
moon, and, by an attendance kept up with- 
out change or intermission for thousands of 
years, would seem to connect the regularity 
of earth with the regularity of heaven. But, 
apart from these greater and simpler ener- 
gies, we see a course and a uniformity every 
where. We recognise it in the mysteries of 
vegetation. We follow it through the suc- 
cessive stages of growth, and maturity, and 
decay, both in plants and animals. We dis- 
cern it still more palpably in that beautiful 
circulation of the element of water, as it 
rolls its way by many thousand channels to 
the ocean — and, from the surface of this 
expanded reservoir, is again uplifted to the 
higher regions of the atmosphere — and is 
there dispersed in light and fleecy maga- 
zines over the four quarters of the globe — 
and at length accomplishes its orbit, by fall- 
ing in showers on a world that waits to be 
refreshed by it. And all goes to impress us 
with the regularity of Nature, which in fact 
teems, throughout all its varieties, with 
power, and principle, and uniform laws of 
operation — and is viewed by us as a vast 
laboratory, all the progressions of which 
have a rigid and unfailing necessity stamped 
upon them. 

Now, this contemplation has at times 
served to foster the atheism of philosophers 
It has led them to deify Nature, and to make 
her immutability stand in the place of God. 
They seem impressed with the imagination, 
that had the Supreme Cause been a being 
who thinks, and wills, and acts as man does, 
on the impulse of a felt and a present, mo- 
tive, there would be more the appearance 
of spontaneous activity, and less of mute 
and unconscious mechanism in the admi- 
nistrations of the universe. It is the very 
unchangeableness of Nature and the stead- 
fastness of those great and mighty processes 
wherewith no living power that is superior 
to Nature, and is able to shift or to control 
her, is seen to interfere— it is this which 



AN ARGUMENT FOR HIS FAITHFULNESS IN HIS WORD. 373 



seems to have impressed the notion of some 
blind and eternal fatality on certain men of 
loftiest but deluded genius. And, accord- 
ingly, in France, where the physical sciences 
have, of late, been the most cultivated, have 
there also been the most daring avowals of 
atheism. The universe has been affirmed to 
be an everlasting and indestructible effect; 
and from the abiding constancy that is seen 
in Nature, through all her departments, 
have they inferred, that thus it has always 
been, and that thus it will ever be. 

But this atheistical impression that is de- 
rived from the constancy of Nature, is not 
peculiar to the disciples of philosophy. It 
is the familiar and the practical impression 
of every-day life. The world is apprehended 
to move on steady and unvarying principles 
of his own; and these secondary causes 
have usurped, in man's estimation, the 
throne of the Divinity. Nature in fact is 
personified into God : and as we look to the 
performance of a machine without thinking 
of its maker, — so the very exactness and 
certainty, wherewith the machinery of 
creation perforins its evolutions, has thrown 
a disguise over the agency of the Creator. 
Should God interpose by miracle, or inter- 
fere by some striking and special manifesta- 
tion of providence, then man is awakened 
to the recognition of him. But he loses 
sight of the Being who sits behind these 
visible elements, while he regards those 
attributes of constancy and power which 
appear in the elements themselves. They 
see no demonstration of a God, and they 
feel no need of him, while such unchanging, 
and such unfailing energy continues to ope- 
rate in the visible world around them ; and 
we need not go to the schools of ratiocina- 
tion in quest of this infidelity, but may de- 
tect it in the bosoms of simple and unlet- 
tered men, who, unknown to themselves, 
make a god of Nature, and just because of 
Nature's constancy ; having no faith in the 
unseen Spirit who originated all and up- 
holds all, and that, because all things con- 
tinue as they were from the beginning of 
the creation. 

Such has been the perverse effect of Na- 
ture's constancy on the alienated mind of 
man : but let us now attend to the true in- 
terpretation of it. God has, in the first in- 
stance, put into our minds a disposition to 
count on the uniformity of Nature, insomuch 
that we universally look for a recurrence of 
the same event in the same circumstances. 
This is not merely the belief of experience, 
but the belief of instinct. It is antecedent 
to all the findings of observation, and may 
be exemplified in the earliest stages of child- 
hood. The infant who makes a noise on the 
table with his hand, for the first time, anti- 
cipates a repetition of the noise from a re- 
petition of the stroke, with as much confi- 
dence as he who has witnessed, for years 



together, the invariableness wherewith these 
two terms of the succession have followed 
each other. Or, in other words, God, by 
putting this faith into every human crea- 
ture, and making it a necessary part of his 
mental constitution, has taught him at all 
times to expect the like result in the like 
circumstances. He has thus virtually told 
him what is to happen, and what he has to 
look for in every given condition — and by 
its so happening accordingly, he just makes 
good the veracity of his own declaration. 
The man who leads me to expect that 
which he fails to accomplish, I would hold 
to be a deceiver. God has so framed the 
machinery of my perceptions, as that I am 
led irresistibly to expect, that every where 
events will follow each other in the very 
train in which I have ever been accustomed 
to observe them — and when God so sustains 
the uniformity of Nature, that in every in- 
stance it is rigidly so, he is just manifesting 
the faithfulness of his character. Were it 
otherwise, he would be practising a mock- 
ery on the expectation which he himself 
had inspired. God may be said to have pro- 
mised to every human being, that Nature 
will be constant — if not by the whisper of 
an inward voice to every heart, at least by 
the force of an uncontrollable bias which 
he has impressed on every constitution. So 
that, when we behold Nature keeping by its 
constancy, we behold the God of Nature 
keeping by his faithfulness — and the system 
of visible things, with its general laws, and 
its successions which are invariable, instead 
of an opaque materialism to intercept from 
the view of mortals the face of the Divinity, 
becomes the mirror which reflects upon 
them the truth that is unchangeable, the 
ordination that never fails. 

Conceive that it had been otherwise — 
first, that man had no faith in the constancy 
of Nature— then how could all his experi- 
ence have profited him? How could he 
have applied the recollections of his past, 
to the guidance of his future history? And, 
what would have been left to signalize the 
wisdom of mankind above that of veriest 
infancy? Or, suppose that he had the im- 
plicit faith in Nature's constancy, but that 
Nature was wanting in the fulfilment of it — 
that at every moment his intuitive reliance 
on this constancy, was met by some caprice 
or waywardness of Nature, which thwarted 
him in all his undertakings — that, instead 
of holding true to her announcements, she 
held the children of men in most distressful 
uncertainty, by the freaks and the falsities 
in which she ever indulged herself— and 
that every design of human foresight was 
thus liable to be broken up, by ever and 
anon the putting forth of some new fluctua- 
tion. Tell me, in this wild misrule of ele- 
ments changing their properties, and events 
ever flitting from one method of succession 



374 



THE CONSTANCY OF GOD IN HIS WORKS 



[SERM. 



to another, if man could subsist for a single 
day, when all the accomplishments without, 
were thus at war with all the hopes and 
calculations within. In such a chaos and 
conflict as this, would not the foundations 
of human wisdom be utterly subverted? 
Would not man, with his powerful and per- 
petual tendency to proceed on the constancy 
of Nature, be tempted, at all times, and by 
the very constitution of his being, to pro- 
ceed upon a falsehood 1 It were the way, 
in fact, to turn the administration of Nature 
into a system of deceit. The lessons of to- 
day, would be falsified by the events of to- 
morrow. He were indeed the father of lies 
who could be the author of such a regimen 
as this — and well may we rejoice in the 
strict order of the goodly universe which 
we inhabit, and regard it as a noble attesta- 
tion to the wisdom and beneficence of its 
great Architect. 

But it is more especially as an evidence 
of his truth, that the constancy of Nature is 
adverted to in our text. It is of his faithful- 
ness unto all generations that mention is 
there made — and for the growth and the 
discipline of your piety, we know not a bet- 
ter practical habit than that of recognising 
the unchangeable truth of God, throughout 
your daily and hourly experience of Na- 
ture's unchangeableness. Your faith in it 
is of his working — and what a condition 
would you have been reduced to, had the 
faith which is within, not been met by an 
entire and unexpected accordancy with the 
fulfilments that are without ! He has not 
told you what to expect by the utterance of 
a voice — but he has taught you what to ex- 
pect by the leadings and the intimations of 
a strong constitutional tendency — and, in 
virtue of this, there is not a human creature 
who does not believe, and almost as firmly 
as in his own existence, that fire will con- 
tinue to burn, and water to cool, and matter 
to resist, and unsupported bodies to fall, and 
ocean to bear the adventurous vessel upon 
its surface, and the solid earth to uphold 
the tread of his footsteps ; and that spring 
will appear again in her wonted smiles, and 
summer will glow into heat and brilliancy, 
and autumn will put on the same luxuri- 
ance as before, and winter, at its stated pe- 
riods, revisit the world with her darkness 
and her storms. We cannot sum up those 
countle-.s varieties of Nature ; but the firm 
expectation is, that throughout them all, as 
she has been established, so she will abide 
to the day of her final dissolution. And I 
call upon you to recognise in Nature's con- 
stancy, the answer of Nature's God to this 
expectation. Ail these material agents are, 
in fact, the organs by which he expresses 
his faithfulness to the world ; and that un- 
veering generality which reigns and con- 
tinues every where, is but the perpetual 
demonstration of a truth that never varies, 



i as well as of laws that never are rescinded. 
It is for us that he upholds the world in all 
its regularity. It is for us that he sustains 
so inviolably the march and the movement 
of those innumerable progressions which 
are going oil around us. It is in remem- 
brance of his promises to us, that he meets 
all our anticipations of Nature's uniformity, 
with the evolutions of a law that is unal- 
terable. It is because he is a God that can- 
not lie, that he will make no invasion on 
that wondrous correspondency which he 
himself hath instituted between the world 
that is without, and our little world of 
hopes, and projects, and anticipations that 
are within. By the constancy of Nature, 
he hath imprinted upon it the lesson of his 
own constancy — and that very character- 
istic wherewith some would fortify the un- 
godliness of their hearts, is the most im- 
pressive exhibition which can be given of 
God, as always faithful, and always the 
same. 

This, then, is the real character which the 
constancy of Nature should lead us to assign 
to him who is the Author of it. In every 
human understanding, he hath planted a 
universal instinct, by which all are led to 
believe that Nature will persevere in her 
wonted courses, and that each succession 
of cause and effect which has been observed 
by us in the time that is past, will, while 
the world exists, be kept up invariably, and 
recur in the very same order through the 
time that is to come. This constancy, then, 
is as good as a promise that he has made 
unto all men, and all that is around us on 
earth or in heaven, proves how inflexibly 
the promise is adhered to. The chemist in 
his laboratory, as he questions Nature, may 
be almost said to put her to the torture, 
when tried in his hottest furnace, or probed 
by his searehing'analysis, to her innermost 
arcana, she, by a spark, or an explosion, or 
an effervescence, or an evolving substance, 
makes her distinct replies to his investiga 
tions. And he repeats her answer to all his 
fellows in philosophy, and they meet in 
academic state and judgment to reiterate 
the question, and in every quarter of the 
globe her answer is the same — so that, let 
the experiment, though a thousand times 
repeated, only be alike in all its circum- 
stances, the result which cometh forth is as 
rigidly alike, without deficiency, and with- 
out deviation. We know how possible it is 
for these worshippers at the footstool of 
science, to make a divinity of matter; and 
that every new discovery of her secrets 
should only rivet them more devotedly to ! 
her throne. But there is a God who liveth 
and sitteth there, and these unvarying re- 
sponses of Nature are all prompted by him- 
self, and are but the utterances of his im- 
mutability. They are the replies of a God 
who never changes, and who hath adapted 



I] 



AN ARGUMENT FOR HIS FAITHFULNESS IN HIS WORD. 



375 



the whole materialism of creation to the 
constitution of every mind that he hath sent 
forth upon it. And to meet the expectation 
which he himself hath given of Nature's 
constancy, is he at each successive instant 
of time, vigilant and ready in every part of 
his vast dominions, to hold out to the eye of 
all observers, the perpetual and unfailing 
demonstration of it. The certainties of Na- 
ture and of Science are, in fact, the vocables 
by which God announces his truth to the 
world — and when told how impossible it is 
that Nature can fluctuate, we are only told 
how impossible it is that the God of Nature 
can deceive us. 

The doctrine that Nature is constant, 
when thus related, as it ought to be, with 
the doctrine that God is true, might well 
strengthen our confidence in him anew with 
every new experience of our history. There 
is not an hour or a moment, in which we 
may not verify the one — and, therefore, not 
an hour or a moment in which we may not 
invigorate the other. Every touch, and 
every look, and every taste, and every act 
of converse between our senses and the 
things that are without, brings home a new 
demonstration of the steadfastness of Na- 
ture, and along with it a new demonstration 
both of his steadfastness and of his faithful- 
ness, who is the Governor of Nature. And 
the same lesson may be fetched from times 
and from places, that are far beyond the 
limits of our own personal history. It can 
be drawn fom the retrospect of past ages, 
where, from the unvaried currency of those 
very processes which we now behold, we 
may learn the stability of all his ways, 
whose goings forth are of old, and from 
everlasting. It can be gathered from the 
most distant extremities of the earth, where 
Nature reigns with the same unwearied 
constancy, as it does around us — and where 
savages count as we do*on a uniformity, 
from wmich she never falters. The lesson 
is commensurate with the whole system of 
things — and with an effulgence as broad as 
the face of creation, and as clear as the light 
which is poured over it, does it at once tell 
that Nature is unchangeably constant, and 
that God is unchangeably true. 

And so it is, that in our text there are 
presented together, as if there was a tie of 
likeness between them — that the same God 
who is fixed as to the ordinances of Nature, 
is faithful as to the declaration of his word ; 
and as all experience proves how firmly he 
may be trusted for the one, so is there an 
argument as strong as experience, to prove 
how firmly he may be trusted for the other. 
By his work in us, he hath awakened 
the expectation of a constancy in Nature, 
which he never disappoints. By his word 
to us, should he awaken the expectation of 
a certainty in his declarations, this he will 
never disappoint. It is because Nature is 



I so fixed, that w T e apprehend the God of Na- 
ture to be so faithful. He who never falsifies 
the hope that hath arisen in every bosom, 
from the instinct which he himself hath 
communicated, will never falsify the hope 
that shall arise in any hosom from the ex- 
press utterance of his voice. Were he a God 
in whose hand the processes of Nature were 
ever shifting, then might we conceive him 
a God from whose mouth the proclamations 
of grace had the like characters of variance 
and vacillation. But it is just because of 
our reliance on the one, that we feel so 
much of repose in our dependence upon the 
other — and the same God who is so unfail- 
ing in the ordinances of his creation, do we 
hold to be equally unfailing in the ordi- 
nances of his word. 

And it is strikingly accordant with these 
views, that Nature never has been known 
to recede from her constancy, but for the 
purpose of giving place and demonstration 
to the authority of the word. Once, in a 
season of miracle, did the word take the 
precedency of Nature, but ever since hath 
Nature resumed her courses, and is now 
proving by her steadfastness, the authority 
of that, which she then proved to be au- 
thentic by her deviations. When the word 
was first ushered in, Nature gave way for 
a period, after which she moves in her 
wonted order, till the present system of 
things shall pass away, and that faith which 
is now upholden by Nature's constancy, 
shall then receive its accomplishment at 
Nature's dissolution. And O, how God mag- 
nifieth his w r ord above all his name, when 
he tells that heaven and earth shall pass 
away, but that his word shall not pass 
away — and that while his creation shall 
become a wreck, not one jot or one tittle of 
his testimony shall fail. The world passeth 
away — but the w r ord endureth for ever — 
and if the faithfulness of God stand forth so 
legibly on the face of the temporary world, 
how surely may we reckon on the faithful- 
ness of that word, which has a vastly higher 
place in the counsels and fulfilments of 
eternity. 

The argument may not be comprehended 
by all, but it will not be lost, should it lead 
any to feel a more emphatic certainty and 
meaning than before, in the declarations of 
the Bible — and to conclude, that he who for 
ages hath stood so fixed to all his plans and 
purposes in Nature, will stand equally fixed 
to all that he proclaims, and to all that he 
promises in Revelation. To be in the hands 
of such a God, might well strike a terror 
into the hearts of the guilty— and that un- 
relenting death, which, with all the sureness 
of an immutable law, is seen, before our 
eyes, to seize upon every individual of every 
species of our world, full well evinces how 
he, the uncompromising Lawgiver, will ex- 
ecute every utterance that he has made 



376 



THE CONSTANCY OF GOD IN HIS WORKS 



[SERM. 



against the children of iniquity. And, on 
the other hand, how this very contempla- 
tion ought to encourage all who are looking 
to the announcements of the same God in 
the Gospel, and who perceive that there he 
has embarked the same truth, and the same 
unchangeableness on the offers of mercy. 
All Nature gives testimony to this, that he 
cannot lie— and seeing that he has stamped 
such enduring properties on the elements 
even of our perishable world, never should 
I falter from that confidence which he hath 
taught me to feel, when I think of that pro- 
perty wherewith the blood which was shed 
for me, cleanseth from all sin ; and of that 
property wherewith the body which was 
broken, beareth the burden of all its penal- 
ties. He who hath so nobly met the faith 
that he has given unto all in the constancy 
of Nature, by a uniformity which knows 
no abatement, will meet the faith that he 
has given unto any in the certainty of grace, 
by a fulfilment unto every believer, which 
knows no exception. 

And it is well to remark the difference 
that there is between the explanation given 
in the text, of Nature's constancy, and the 
impression which the mere students or 
disciples of Nature have of it. It is because 
of her constancy that they have been led 
to invest her, as it were, in properties of 
her own ; that they have given a kind of in- 
dependent power and stability to matter; 
that in the various energies which lie scat- 
tered over the field of visible contemplation, 
they see a native inherent virtue, which 
never for a single moment is slackened 
or suspended — and therefore imagine, that 
as no force from without seems necessary 
to sustain, so as little, perhaps, is there need 
for any such force from without to originate. 
The mechanical certainty of all Nature's 
processes, as it appears in their eyes to 
supersede the demand for any upholding 
agency, so does it also supersede, in the 
silent imaginations of many, and according 
to the express and bold avowals of some, 
the demand for any creative agency. It is 
thus, that Nature is raised into a divinity, 
and has been made to reign over all, in the 
state and jurisdiction of an eternal fatalism; 
and proud Science, which by wisdom 
knoweth not God, hath in her march of 
discovery, seized upon the invariable cer- 
tainties of Nature, those highest character- 
istics of his authority and wisdom and 
truth, as the instruments by which to dis- 
prove and to dethrone him. 

Now compare this interpretation of mon- 
strous and melancholy atheism, with that 
which the Bible gives, why all things move 
so invariably. It is because that all are thy 
servants. It is because they are all under 
the bidding of a God who has purposes 
from which he never falters, and hath is- 
sued promises from which he never fails. 



It is because the arrangements of his vast 
and capacious household are already order- 
ed for the best, and all the elements of Na- 
ture are the ministers by which he fulfils 
them. That is the master who has most 
honour and obedience from his domestics 
throughout all whose ordinations there runs 
a consistency from which he never devi- 
ates; and he best sustains his dignity in 
the midst of them, who, by mild but resist- 
less sway, can regulate the successions of 
every hour, and affix his sure and appropri- 
ate service to every member of the family. 
It is when we see all, in any given time, 
at their respective places, and each dis- 
tinct period of the day having its own 
distinct evolution of business or recreation, 
that we infer the wisdom of the instituted 
government, and how irrevocable the sanc- 
tions are by which it is upholden. The 
vexatious alternations of command and of 
countermand; the endless fancies of hu- 
mour, and caprice, and waywardness, which 
ever and anon break forth, to the total 
overthrow of system; the perpetual in- 
novations which none do foresee, and for 
which none, therefore, can possibly be pre- 
pared — these are not more harassing to 
the subject, than they are disparaging to 
the truth and authority of the superior. 
It is in the bosom of a well-conducted fa- 
mily, where you witness the sure dispensa- 
tion of all the reward and encouragement 
which have been promised, and the unfail- 
ing execution of the disgrace and the dis- 
missal that are held forth to obstinate dis- 
obedience. Now those very qualities of 
which this uniformity is the test and the 
characteristic in the government of any 
human society, of these also is it the test 
and the characteristic in the government 
of Nature. It bespeaks the wisdom, and the 
authority, and the truth of him who framed 
and who administers. Let there be a King 
eternal, immortal, and invisible, and let this 
universe be his empire — and in all the 
rounds of its complex but unerring mechan- 
ism, do I recognise him as the only wise God. 
In the constancy of Nature, do I read the 
constancy and truth of that great master 
Spirit, who hath imprinted his own charac- 
ter on all that hath emanated from his 
power ; and when told that throughout the 
mighty lapse of centuries, all the courses 
both of earth and of heaven, have been 
upholden as before, I only recognise the 
footsteps of him who is ever the same, and 
whose faithfulness is unto all generations. 
That perpetuity, and order, and ancient 
law of succession, which have subsisted so 
long, throughout the wide diversity of 
things, bear witness to the Lord of hosts, 
as still at the head of his well-marshalled 
family. The present age is only re-echo- 
ing the lesson of all past ages — and that 
spectacle, which has misled those who by 



AN ARGUMENT FOR HIS FAITHFULNESS IN HIS WORD. 



377 



wisdom know not God, into dreary atheism, 
has enhanced every demonstration both of 
his veracity and power, to all intelligent 
worshippers. We know that all things 
continue as they were from the beginning 
of creation. We know that the whole of 
surrounding materialism stands forth, to 
this very hour, in all the inflexibility of her 
wonted characters. We know that heaven, 
and earth, and sea, still discharge the same 
functions, and subserve the very same be- 
neficent processes. We know that astrono- 
my plies the same rounds as before, that 
the cycles of the firmament move in their 
old and appointed order, and that the year 
circulates as it has ever done, in grateful 
variety, over the face of an expectant world 
—bat only because all are of God, and they 
continue this day according to his ordi- 
nances — for all are his servants. 

Now, it is just because the successions 
which take place in the economy of Nature, 
are so invariable, that we should expect the 
successions which take place in the econo- 
my of God's moral government to be equal- 
ly invariable. That expectation which he 
never disappoints when it is the fruit of a 
universal instinct, he surely will never dis- 
appoint when it is the fruit of his own ex- 
press and immediate revelation. If because 
God hath so established it, it cometh to 
pass, then of whatsoever it maybe affirmed 
that God hath so said it, it will come equally 
to pass. I should certainly look for the 
same character in the administrations of 
his special grace, that I, at all times, wit- 
ness in the administrations of his ordinary 
providence. If I see in the system of his 
world, that the law by which two events 
follow each other, gives rise to a connexion 
between them that never is dissolved, then 
should he say in his word, that there are 
certain invariable methods of succession, 
in virtue of which when the first term of it 
occurs, the second is sure at all times to 
follow, I should be very sure in my antici- 
pations, that it will indeed be most punc- 
tually and most rigidly so. It is thus, that 
the constancy of Nature is in fullest har- 
mony with the authority of Revelation — 
and that, when fresh from the contempla- 
tion of the one, I would listen with most 
implicit faith to all the announcements of 
the other. 

When we behold all to be so sure and 
settled in the works of God, then may we 
look for all being equally sure and settled 
in the word of God. Philosophy hath 
never yet detected one iota of deviation 
from the ordinances of Nature — and never, 
therefore, may we conclude, shall the ex- 
perience either of past or future ages, de- 
tect one iota of deviation from the ordi- 
nances of Revelation. He who so pointedly 
adheres to every plan that he hath establish- 
ed in creation, will as pointedly adhere to 
3B 



every proclamation that he hath uttered in 
Scripture. There is nought of the fast and 
loose in any of his processes — and whether 
in the terrible denunciations of Sinai, or those 
mild proffers of mercy that were sounded 
forth upon the world through Messiah, who 
upholdeth all things by the word of his pow- 
er, shall we alike experience that God is not 
to be mocked, and that with him there is no 
variableness, neither shadow of turning. 

With this certainty then upon our spirits, 
let us now look, not to the successions 
which he hath instituted in nature, but to 
the successions which he hath announced to 
us, in the word of his testimony — and let 
us, while so doing, fix and solemnize our 
thoughts by the consideration, that as God 
hath said it, so will he do it. 

The first of these successions, then, on 
which we may count infallibly, is that 
which he hath proclaimed between sin and 
punishment. The soul that sinneth it shall 
die. And here there is a common ground 
on which the certainties of divine revela- 
tion meet and are at one with the certain- 
ties of human experience. We are told in 
the Bible, that all have sinned, and that, 
therefore, death hath passed upon all men. 
The connexion between these two terms is 
announced in Scripture to be invariable — 
and all observation tells us, that it is even 
so. Such was the sentence uttered in the 
hearing of our first parents ; and all history 
can attest how God hath kept by the word 
of his threatening — and how this law of 
jurisprudence from heaven is realized be- 
fore us upon earth, with all the certainty 
of a law of Nature. The death of man is 
just as stable and as essential a part of his 
physiology, as are his birth, or his expan- 
sion, or his maturity, or his decay. It looks 
as much a thing of organic necessity, as a 
thing of arbitrary institution— and here do 
we see blended into one exhibition, a cer- 
tainty of the divine word that never fails, 
and a constancy in Nature that never is de- 
parted from. It is indeed a striking accord- 
ancy, that what in one view of it appears 
to be a uniform process of Nature, in an- 
other view of it, is but the unrelenting exe- 
cution of a dread utterance from the God 
of Nature. From this contemplation may 
we gather, that God is as certain in all his 
words, as he is constant in all his ways. 
Men can philosophize on the diseases of the 
human system — and the laborious treatise 
can be written on the class, and the charac- 
ter, and the symptoms, of each of them — 
and in our halls of learning, the ample de- 
monstration can be given, and disciples may 
be taught how to judge and to prognosticate, 
and in what appearances to read the fell 
precursors of mortality — and death has so 
taken up its settled place among the immu- 
tabilities of Nature, that it is as familiarly 
treated in the lecture-rooms of science, as 



378 



THE CONSTANCY OF GOD IN HIS WORKS 



[SERM. 



any other phenomena which Nature has to 
offer for the exercise of the human under- 
standing. And, O, how often are the smile 
and the stoutness of infidelity seen to min- 
gle with this appalling contemplation — and 
how little will its hardy professors bear to be 
told, that what gives so dread a certainty to 
their speculation is, that the God of Nature 
and the God of the Bible, are one— that when 
they describe, in lofty nomenclature, the 
path of dying humanity, they only describe 
the way in which he fulfils upon it his ir- 
revocable denunciation— tha the is but doing 
now to the posterity of Adam what he 
told to Adam himself on his expulsion from 
Paradise — and that, if the universality of 
death prove how every law in the physics 
of creation is sure, it just as impressively 
proves, how every word of God's immedi- 
ate utterance to man, or how every word of 
prophecy, is equally sure. 

And in every instance of mortality which 
you are called to witness, do we call upon 
you to read in it the intolerance of God 
for sin, and how unsparingly and unrelent- 
ingly it is, that God carries into effect his 
every utterance against it. The connection 
which he hath instituted between the two 
terms of sin and of death should lead you 
from every appeal that is made to your 
senses by the one, to feel the force of an 
appeal to your conscience by the other. 
It proves the hatefulness of sin to God, and 
it also proves with what unfaltering con- 
stancy God will prosecute every threat un- 
til he hath made an utter extirpation of sin 
from his presence. There is nought which 
can make more palpable the way in which 
God keeps every saying in his perpetual 
remembrance, and as surely proceeds upon 
it, than doth this universal plague where- 
with he hath smitten every individual of 
our species, and carries off its successive 
generations from a world that sprung from 
his hand in all the bloom and vigour of 
immortality. When death makes entrance 
upon a family, and perhaps, seizes on that 
one member of it, all whose actual trans- 
gressions might be summed up in the out- 
breakings of an occasional waywardness, 
wherewith the smiles of infant gaiety were 
chequered — still how it demonstrates the 
unbending purposes of God against our 
present accursed nature, that in some one 
or other of its varieties, every specimen 
must die. And so it is, that from one age 
to another, he makes open manifestation to 
the world, that every utterance which hath 
fallen from him is sure ; and that ocular 
proof is given to the character of him who 
is a Spirit, and is invisible ; and that sense 
lends its testimony to the truth of God, and 
the truth of his Scripture ; and that Nature, 
when rightly viewed, instead of placing 
its inquirers at atheistical variance with I 
the being who upholds it, holds out to us I 



the most impressive commentary that can 
be given on the reverence which is due 
to all his communications, even by de- 
monstrating, that faith in his word is at 
unison with the findings of our daily ob- 
servation. 

But God hath further said of sin and of 
its consequences, what no observation of 
ours has yet realized. He hath told us of 
the judgment that cometh after death, and 
he hath told us of the two diverse paths 
which lead from the judgment-seat unto 
eternity. Of these we have not yet seen 
the verification, yet surely we have seen 
enough to prepare us for the unfailing accom- 
plishment of every utterance that cometh 
from the lips of God. The unexcepted 
death which we know cometh upon all 
men, for that all have sinned, might well 
convince us of the certainty of that second 
death which is threatened upon all who 
turn not from sin unto the Saviour. There 
is an indissoluble succession here between 
our sinning and our dying — and we ought 
now to be so aware of God as a God of 
precise and peremptory execution, as to 
look upon the succession being equally in- 
dissoluble, between our dying in sin now, 
and rising to everlasting condemnation here- 
after. The sinner who wraps himself in de- 
lusive security — and that, because all things 
continue as they have done, does not reflect 
of this very characteristic, that it is indeed 
the most awful proof of God's immutable 
counsels, and to himself the most tremen- 
dous presage of all the ruin and wretched- 
ness which have been denounced upon him. 
The spectacle of uniformity that is before 
his eyes, only goes to ascertain that as God 
hath purposed, so, without vacillation or 
inconstancy, will he ever perform. He hath 
already given a sample, or an earnest of this, 
in the awful ravages of death ; and we ask 
the sinner to behold, in the ever-recurring 
spectacle of moving funerals, and desolated 
families, the token of that still deeper per- 
dition which awaits him. Let him not think 
that the God who deals his relentless inflic- 
tions here on every son and daughter of the 
species, will falter there from the work of 
vengeance that shall then descend on the 
heads of the impenitent. O, how deceived 
then are all those ungodly, who have been 
building to themselves a safety and an ex- 
emption on the perpetuity of Nature ! All 
the perpetuity which they have witnessed, 
is the pledge of a God who is unchange- 
able — and who, true to his threatening as to 
every other utterance which passes his lips, 
hath said, in the hearing of men and of 
angels, that the soul which is in sin shall 
perish. 

But, secondly, there is another succession 
announced to us in Scripture, and on the 
certainty of which we may place as firm a 
reliance as on any of the observed succes- 



AN ARGUMENT FOR HIS FAITHFULNESS IN HIS WORD. 



«•] 



sions of Nature— even that which obtains 
between faith and salvation. He who be- 
iieveth iD Christ, shall not perish, hut shall 
have life everlasting. The same truth 
which God hath embarked on the declara- 
tions of his wrath against the impenitent, he 
hath also embarked on the declarations of 
his mercy to the believer. There is a law 
of continuity, as unfailing as any series of 
events in Nature, that binds with the present 
state of an obstinate sinner upon earth, all 
the horrors of his future wretchedness in 
hell— but there is also another law of con- 
tinuity just as unfailing, that binds the pre- 
sent state of him who putteth faith in Christ 
here, with the triumphs and the transports 
of his coming glory hereafter. And thus it 
is, that what we read of God's constancy in 
the book of Nature, may well strengthen our 
every assurance in the promises of the gos- 
pel. It is not in the recurrence of winter 
alone, and its desolations, that God mani- 
fests his adherence to established processes. 
There are many periodic evolutions of the 
bright and the beautiful along the march 
of his administrations — as the dawn of morn ; 
and the grateful access of spring, with its 
many hues, and odours, and melodies ; and 
the ripened abundance of harvest ; and that 
glorious arch of heaven, which science hath 
now appropriated as her own, but which 
nevertheless is placed there by God as the 
unfailing token of a sunshine already begun, 
and a storm now ended — all these come forth 
at appointed seasons, in a consecutive or- 
der, yet mark the footsteps of a beneficent 
Deity. And so the economy of grace has 
its regular successions, which carry, how- 
ever, a blessing in their train. The faith in 
Christ, to which we are invited upon earth, 
has its sure result and its landing-place in 
heaven — and just with as unerring certainty 
as we behold in the courses of the firma- 
ment, will it be followed up by a life of vir- 
tue, and a death of hope, and a resurrection 
of joyfulness, and a voice of welcome at the 
judgment-seat, and a bright ascent into fields 
of ethereal blessedness, and an entrance upon 
glory, and a perpetual occupation in the city 
of the living God. 

To all men hath he given a faith in the 
constancy of Nature, and he never disap- 
points it. To some men hath he given a 
faith in the promises of the gospel, and he 
is ready to bestow it upon all who ask, or 
to perfect that which is lacking in it — and 
the one faith will as surely meet with its 
corresponding fulfilment as the other. The 
invar iableness that reigns throughout the 
kingdom of Nature, guarantees the like in- 
variableness in the kingdom of grace. He 
who is steadfast to all his appointments, will 
De true to all his declarations — and those 
very exhibitions of a strict and undeviating 
order in our universe, which have minis- 
tered to the irreligion of a spurious philoso- 



379 



phy, form a basis on which the believer can 
prop a firmer confidence than before, in all 
the spoken and all the written testimonies 
of God. 

With a man of taste, and imagination, and 
science, and who is withal a disciple of the 
Lord Jesus, such an argument as this must 
shed a new interest and glory over his whole 
contemplation of visible things. He knows 
of his Saviour, that by him all things were 
made, and that by him too all things are up- 
holden. The world, In fact, was created by 
that Being whose name is the Word, and 
from the features that are imprinted on the 
one, may he gather some of the leading cha- 
racteristics of the other. More expressly 
will he infer from that sure and established 
order of Nature, in which the whole family 
©f mankind are comprehended, that the 
more special family of believers are indeed 
encircled within the bond of a sure and a 
well-ordered covenant. In those beauteous 
regularities by which the one economy is 
marked, will he be led to recognise the 
" yea" and the " amen" which are stamped 
on the other economy — and when he learns 
that the certainties of science are unfailing, 
does he also learn that the sayings of Scrip- 
ture are unalterable. Both he knows to 
emanate from the same source ; and every 
new experience of Nature's constancy, will 
just rivet him more tenaciously than before 
to the doctrine and the declarations of his 
Bible. Furnished with such a method of 
interpretation as this, let him go abroad upon 
Nature, and all that he sees will heighten 
and establish the hopes which Revelation 
hath awakened. Every recurrence of the 
same phenomena as before, will be to him 
a distinct testimony to the faithfulness of 
God. The very hours will bear witness to 
it. The lengthening shades of even will 
repeat the lesson held out to him by the light 
of early day — and when night unveils to his 
eye the many splendours of the firmament, 
will every traveller on his circuit there, 
speak to him of that mighty and invisible 
King, all whose ordinations are sure. And 
this manifestation from the face of heaven, 
will be reflected to him by the panorama 
upon earth. Even the buds which come 
forth at their appointed season on the leaf- 
less branches ; and the springing up of the 
flowers and the herbage, on the spots of 
ground from which they had disappeared ; 
and that month of vocal harmony where- 
with the mute atmosphere is gladdened as 
before, with the notes of joyous festival ; and 
so, the regular march of the advancing year 
through all its footsteps of revival, and pro- 
gress, and maturity, and decay— these are 
to him but the diversified tokens of a God 
whom he can trust, because of a God who 
changeth not. To his eyes, the world re- 
flects upon the word the lesson of its own 
wondrous harmony; and his science, in- 



380 



THE CONSTANCY OF GOD IN HIS WORKS, &C. 



[SERM. 



stead of a meteor that lures him from the 
greater light of revelation, serves him as a 
pedestal on which the stability of Scripture 
is more firmly upholden. 

The man who is accustomed to view aright 
the uniformity of Nature's sequences, will 
be more impressed with the certainty of that 
sequence which is announced in the Bible 
between faith and salvation — and he, of all 
others, should re-assure his hopes of immor- 
tality, when he reads, that the end of our 
faith is the salvation of our souls. In this 
secure and wealthy place, let him take up 
his rest, and rejoice himself greatly with 
that God who has so multiplied upon him 
the evidences of his faithfulness. Let him 
henceforth feel that he is in the hands of 
one who never deviates, and who cannot 
lie — and who, as he never by one act of ca- 
price, hath mocked the dependence that is 
built on the foundation of human experience, 
so, never by one act of treachery, will he 
mock the dependence that is built on the 
foundation of the divine testimony. And 
more particularly, let him think of Christ, 
who hath all the promises in his hand, that 
to him also all power has been committed 
in heaven and in earth — and that presiding 
therefore, as he does, over that visible ad- 
ministration, of which constancy is the un- 
failing attribute, he by this hath given us 
the best pledge of a truth that abide th the 
same, to-day, and yesterday, and for ever. 

We are aware, that no argument can of 
itself work in you the faith of the Gospel — 
that words and reasons, and illustrations, 
may be multiplied without end, and yet be 
of no efficacy — that if the simple manifesta- 
tion of the Spirit be withheld, the expounder 
of Scripture, and of all its analogies with 
creation or Providence, will lose his labour 
— and while it is his part to prosecute these 
to the uttermost, yet nought will he find 
more surely and experimentally true, than 
that without a special interposition of light 
from on high, he runneth in vain, and 
wearieth himself in vain. It is for him to 
ply the instrument, it is for God to give 
unto it the power which availeth. We are 
told of Christ, on his throne of mediator- 
ship, that he hath all the energies of Na- 
ture at command, and up to this hour do we 
know with what a steady and unfaltering 
hand he hath wielded them. Look to the 



promise as equally steadfast, of "Lo, I am 
with you always, even unto the end of the 
world" — and come even now to his own 
appointed ordinance in the like confidence 
of a fellowship with him, as you would to 
any of the scenes or ordinations of Nature, 
and in the confidence that there the Lord of 
Nature will prove himself the same that He 
has ever been.* The blood that was an- 
nounced many centuries ago to cleanse 
from all sin, cleanseth still. The body 
which hath borne in all past ages the ini- 
quity of believers, beareth it still. That faith 
which appropriates Christ and all the bene- 
fits of his purchase, to the soul, still per- 
forms the same office. And that magnificent 
economy of Nature which was established 
at the first, and so abideth, is but the sym- 
bol of that higher economy of grace which 
continueth to this day according to all its 
ordinances. 

"Whosoever eateth my flesh, and drink- 
eth my blood," says the Saviour, " shall 
never die." When you sit down at his table, 
you eat the bread, and you drink the wine 
by which these are represented — and if this 
be done worthily, if there be a right corres- 
pondence between the hand and the heart 
in this sacramental service, then by faith do 
you receive the benefits of the shed blood, 
and the broken body; and your so doing 
will as surely as any succession takes place 
in the instituted courses of Nature, be fol- 
lowed up by your blessed immortality. And 
the brighter your hopes of glory hereafter, 
the holier will you be in all your acts and 
affections here. The character even now 
will receive a tinge from the prospect that 
is before you — and the habitual anticipation 
of heaven will bring down both of its charity 
and its sacredness upon your heart. He 
who hath this hope in him purifieth him- 
self even as Christ is pure — and even from 
the present, if a true approach to the gate 
of his sanctuary, will you carry a portion 
of his spirit away with you. In partaking 
of these, his consecrated elements, you be- 
come partakers of his gentleness and devo- 
tion, and unwearied beneficence — and be- 
cause like him in time, you will live with 
him through eternity. 



* This Sermon was delivered on the morning t $ 
a Communion Sabbath. 



II.] 



THE EXPULSIVE POWER OF A NEW AFFECTION. 



381 



SERMON II. 

The expulsive Power of a new Affection. 

u Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the 
Father is not in him."- — 1 John ii. 15. 



There are two ways in which a practi- 
cal moralist may attempt to displace from 
the human heart its love of the world — 
either by a demonstration of the world's 
vanity, so as that the heart shall be pre- 
vailed upon simply to withdraw its regards 
from an object that is not worthy of it ; or, 
by setting forth another object, even God, 
as more worthy of its attachment, so as 
that the heart shall be prevailed upon not 
to resign an old affection, which shall have 
nothing to succeed it, but to exchange an 
old affection for a new one. My purpose is 
to show, that from the constitution of our 
nature, the former method is altogether in- 
competent and ineffectual — and that the 
latter method will alone suffice for the res- 
cue and recovery of the heart from the 
wrong affection that domineers over it. Af- 
ter having accomplished this purpose, I 
shall attempt a few practical observations. 

Love may be regarded in two different 
conditions. The first is, when its object is 
at a distance, and then it becomes love in a 
state of desire. The second is, when its 
object is in possession, and then it becomes 
love in a state of indulgence. Under the 
impulse of desire, man feels himself urged 
onward in some path or pursuit of activity 
for its gratification. The faculties of his 
mind are put into busy exercise. In the 
steady direction of one great and engross- 
ing interest, his attention is recalled from 
the many reveries into which it might other- 
wise have wandered ; and the powers of his 
body are forced away from an indolence in 
which it else might have languished ; and 
that time is crowded with occupation, which 
but for some object of keen and devoted 
ambition, might have drivelled along in 
successive hours of weariness and distaste — 
and though hope does not always enliven, 
and success does not always crown this 
career of exertion, yet in the midst of this 
very variety, and with the alternations of 
occasional disappointment, is the machinery 
of the whole man kept in a sort of conge- 
nial play, and upholden in that tone and 
temper which are most agreeable to it. In- 
somuch, that if through the extirpation of 
that desire which forms the originating 
principle of all this movement, the ma- 
chinery were to stop, and to receive no im- 
pulse from another desire substituted in its 
place, the man would be left with all, his 
propensities to action in a state of most 
painful and unnatural abandonment. A 



sensitive being suffers, and is in violence, 
if, after having thoroughly rested from his 
fatigue, or been relieved from his pain, he 
continue in possession of powers without 
any excitement to these powers ; if he pqs • 
sess a capacity of desire without having 
an object of desire ; or if he have a spare 
energy upon his person, without a counter- 
part, and without a stimulus to call it into 
operation. The misery of such a condition 
is often realized by him who is retired from 
business, or who is retired from law, or who 
is even retired from the occupations of the 
chase, and of the gaming table. Such is 
the demand of our nature for an object in 
pursuit, that no accumulation of previous 
success can extinguish it — and thus it is, 
that the most prosperous merchant, and the 
most victorious general, and the most for- 
tunate gamester, when the labour of their 
respective vocations has come to a close, 
are often found to languish in the midst of 
all their acquisitions, as if out of their kin- 
dred and rejoicing element. It is quite in 
vain with such a constitutional appetite for 
employment in man, to attempt cutting 
away from him the spring or the principle 
of one employment, without providing him 
with another. The whole heart and habit 
will rise in resistance against such an under- 
taking. The else unoccupied female, who 
spends the hours of every evening at some 
play of hazard, knows as well as you, that 
the pecuniary gain, or the honourable tri- 
umph of a successful contest, are altogether 
paltry. It is not such a demonstration of 
vanity as this that will force her away from 
her dear and delightful occupation. The 
habit cannot so be displaced, as to leave 
nothing but a negative and cheerless va- 
cancy behind it — though it may so be sup- 
planted as to be followed up by another 
habit of employment, to which the power 
of some new affection has constrained her. 
It is willingly suspended, for example, on 
any single evening, should the time that 
wont to be allotted to gaming, require to 
be spent on the preparations of an approach- 
ing assembly. 

The ascendant power of a second affec- 
tion will do, what no exposition, however 
forcible, of the folly and worthlessness of 
the first, ever could effectuate. And it is 
the same in the great world. You never 
will be able to arrest any of its leading pur- 
suits, by a naked demonstration of their 
vanity. It is quite in vain to think of stop- 



382 



THE EXPULSIVE POWER OF A NEW AFFECTION. 



[SERM. 



ping one of these pursuits in any way else, 
but by stimulating to another. In attempt- 
ing to bring a worldly man, intent and bu- 
sied with the prosecution of his objects, to 
a dead stand, you have not merely to en- 
counter the charm which he annexes to 
these objects — but you have to encounter 
the pleasure which he feels in the very 
prosecution of them. It is not enough, 
then, that you dissipate the charm, by your 
moral, and eloquent, and affecting exposure 
of its illusiveness. You must address to the 
eye of his mind another object, with a 
charm powerful enough to dispossess the 
first of its influence, and to engage him in 
some other prosecution as full of interest, 
and hope, and congenial activity, as the 
former. It is this which stamps an impo- 
tency on all moral and pathetic declamation 
about the insignificance of the world. A 
man will no more consent to the misery of 
being without an object, because that object 
is a trifle, or of being without a pursuit, be- 
cause that pursuit terminates in some frivo- 
lous or fugitive acquirement, than he will 
voluntarily submit himself to the torture, 
because that torture is to be of short dura- 
tion. If to be without desire and without 
exertion altogether, is a state of violence 
and discomfort, then the present desire, 
with its correspondent train of exertion, is 
not to be got rid of simply by destroying it. 
It must be by substituting another desire, 
and another line or habit of exertion in its 
place — and the most effectual way of with- 
drawing the mind from one object, is not 
by turning it away upon desolate and un- 
peopled vacancy — but by presenting to its 
regards another object still more alluring. 

These remarks apply not merely to love 
considered in its state of desire for an ob- 
ject not yet obtained. They apply also to 
love considered in its state of indulgence, 
or placid gratification, with an object al- 
ready in possession. It is seldom that any 
of our tastes are made to disappear by a 
mere process of natural extinction. At 
least, it is very seldom that this is done 
through the instrumentality of reasoning. 
It may be done by excessive pampering — 
but it is almost never done by the mere 
force of mental determination. But what 
cannot be thus destroyed, may be dispos- 
sessed — and one taste may be made to give 
way to another, and to lose its power en- 
tirely as the reigning affection of the mind. 
It is thus, that the boy ceases, at length, to 
be the slave of his appetite, but it is because 
a manlier taste has now brought it into sub- 
ordination — and that the youth ceases to 
idolize pleasure, but it is because the idol 
of wealth has become the stronger and got- 
ten the ascendency — and that even the love 
of money ceases* to have the mastery over 
the heart of many a thriving citizen, but it 
is because drawn into the whirl of city poli- 



tics, another affection has been wrought 
into his moral system, and he is now lorded 
over by the love of power. There is not 
one of these transformations in which the 
heart is left without an object. Its desire 
for one particular object may be conquered ; 
but as to its desire for having some one 
object or other, this is unconquerable. Its 
adhesion to that on which it has fastened 
the preference of its regards, cannot wil- 
lingly be overcome by the rending away of 
a simple separation. It can be done only 
by the application of something else, to 
which it may feel the adhesion of a still 
stronger and more powerful preference. 
Such is the grasping tendency of the hu- 
man heart, that it must have a something 
to lay hold of— and which, if wrested away 
without the substitution of another some- 
thing in its place, would leave a void and a 
vacancy as painful to the mind, as hunger 
is to the natural system. It may be dispos- 
sessed of one object, or of any, but it can- 
not be desolated of all. Let there be a 
breathing and a sensitive heart, but without 
a liking and without affinity to any of the 
things that are around it, and in a state of 
cheerless abandonment, it would be alive to 
nothing but the burden of its own con- 
sciousness, and feel it to be intolerable. It 
would make no difference to its owner, 
whether he dwelt in the midst of a gay and 
goodly world, or placed afar beyond the 
outskirts of creation, he dwelt a solitary 
unit in dark and unpeopled nothingness. 
The heart must have something to cling to 
—and never, by its own voluntary consent, 
will it so denude itself of all its attachments, 
that there shall not be one remaining object 
that can draw or solicit it. 

The misery of a heart thus bereft of all 
relish for that which w r ont to minister en- 
joyment, is strikingly exemplified in those, 
who, satiated with indulgence, have been 
so belaboured, as it were, with the variety 
and the poignancy of the pleasurable sen- 
sations that they have experienced, that 
they are at length fatigued out of all ca- 
pacity for sensation whatever. The disease 
of ennui is more frequent in the French 
metropolis, where amusement is more ex- 
clusively the occupation of higher classes, 
than it is in the British metropolis, where 
the longings of the heart are more diversi- 
fied by the resources of business and poli- 
tics. "There are the votaries of fashion, 
who, in this way, have at length become 
the victims of fashionable excess— in whom 
the very multitude of their enjoyments, has 
at last extinguished their power of enjoy- 
ment — who, with the gratifications of art 
and nature at command, now look upon all 
that is around them with an eye of taste- 
lessness— who, plied with the delights of 
sense and of splendour even to weariness, 
and incapable of higher delights, have come 



II.] 



THE EXPULSIVE POWER OF A NEW AFFECTION. 



383 



to the end of all their perfection, and like 
Solomon of old, found it to be vanity and 
vexation. The man whose heart has thus 
been turned into a desert, can vouch for the 
insupportable languor which must ensue, 
when one affection is thus plucked away 
from the bosom, without another to replace 
it. It is not necessary that a man receive 
pain from any thing, in order to become 
miserable. It is barely enough that he looks 
with distaste to every thing — and in that 
asylum which is the repository of minds 
out of joint, and where the organ of feeling 
as well as the organ of intellect, has been 
impaired, it is not in the cell of loud and 
frantic outcries where you will meet with 
the acme of mental suffering. But that is 
the individual who outpeers in wretched- 
ness all his fellows, who throughout the 
whole expanse of nature and society, meets 
not an object that has at all the power to 
detain or to interest him ; who neither in 
earth beneath, nor in heaven above, knows 
of a single charm to which his heart can 
send forth one desirous or responding 
movement ; to whom the world, in his eye 
a vast and empty desolation, has left him 
nothing but his own consciousness to feed 
upon — dead to all that is -without him, and 
alive to nothing but to the load of his own 
torpid and useless existence. 

It will now be seen, perhaps, why it is 
that the heart keeps by its present affections 
with so much tenacity — when the attempt 
is, to do them away by a mere process of 
extirpation. It will not consent to be so 
desolated. The strong man, whose dwell- 
ing-place is there, may be compelled to give 
way to another occupier — but unless ano- 
ther stronger than he, has power to dispos- 
sess and to succeed him, he will keep his 
present lodgment inviolable. The heart 
would revolt against its own emptiness. It 
could not bear to be so left in a state of 
waste and cheerless insipidity. The moralist 
who tries such a process of dispossession 
as this upon the heart, is thwarted at every 
step by the recoil of its own mechanism. 
You have all heard that Nature abhors a 
vacuum. Such at least is the nature of the 
heart, that though the room which is in it 
may change one inmate for another, it can- 
not be left void without the pain of most 
intolerable suffering. It is not enough then 
to argue the folly of an existing affection. 
It is not enough, in the terms of a forcible 
or an affecting demonstration, to make good 
the evanescence of its object. It may not 
even be enough to associate the threats and 
terrors of some coming vengeance, with the 
indulgence of it. The heart may still re- 
sist the every application, by obedience to 
which it would finally be conducted to a 
state so much at war with all its appetites 
as that of downright inanition. So to tear 
away an affection from the heart, as to leave 



it bare of all its regards, and of all its pre- 
ferences, were a hard and hopeless under- 
taking — and it would appear as if the alone 
powerful engine of dispossession, were to 
bring the mastery of another affection to 
bear upon it. 

We know not a more sweeping interdict 
upon the affections of Nature, than that 
which is delivered by the Apostle in the 
verse before us. To bid a man into whom 
there is not yet entered the great and 
ascendant influence of the principle of re- 
generation, to bid him withdraw his Jove 
from all the things that are in the world, is 
to bid him give up all the affections that are 
in his heart. The world is the all of a na- 
tural man. He has not a taste, nor a desire, 
that points not to a something placed with- 
in the confines of its visible horizon. He 
loves nothing above it, and he cares for no- 
thing beyond it; and to bid him love not 
the world, is to pass a sentence of expulsion 
on all the inmates of his bosom. To esti- 
mate the magnitude and the difficulty of 
such a surrender, let us only think that it 
w 7 ere just as arduous to prevail on him not 
to love wealth, which is but one of the 
things in the world, as to prevail on him 
to set wilful fire to his own property. This 
he might do with sore and painful reluc- 
tance, if he saw that the salvation of his 
life hung upon it. But this he would do 
willingly, if he saw that a new property of 
tenfold value w r as instantly to emerge from 
the wreck of the old one. In this case there 
is something more than the mere displace- 
ment of an affection. There is the over- 
bearing of one affection by another. But 
to desolate his heart of all love for the 
things of the world, without the substitu- 
tion of any love in its place, were to him a 
process of as unnatural violence, as to de- 
stroy all the things he has in the world, 
and give him nothing in their room. So 
that, if to love not the world be indispensa- 
ble to one's Chris^nity, then the cruci- 
fixion of the old irran is not too strong a 
term to mark that transition in his history, 
when all old things are done away, and all 
things are become new. 

We hope that by this time, you under- 
stand the impotency of a mere demonstra- 
tion of this world's insignificance. Its sole 
practical effect, if it had any, would be to 
leave the heart in a state which to every 
heart is insupportable, and that is a mere 
state of nakedness and negation. You may 
remember the fond and unbroken tenacity 
with which your heart has often recurred 
to pursuits, over the utter frivolity of which 
it sighed and wept but yesterday. The 
arithmetic of your short-lived days, may 
on Sabbath make the clearest impression 
upon your understanding — and from his 
fancied bed of death, may the preacher 
cause a voice to descend in rebuke and 



384 



THE EXPULSIVE POWER OP A NEW AFFECTION. 



[jSERM. 



mockery on all the pursuits of earthliness 
— and as he pictures before you the fleet- 
ing generations of men, with the absorbing 
grave, whither all the joys and interests of 
the world hasten to their sure and speedy 
oblivion, may you, touched and solemnized 
by his argument, feel for a moment as if 
on the eve of a practical and permanent 
emancipation from a scene of so much 
vanity. But the morrow comes, and the 
business of the world, and the objects of 
the world, and the moving forces of the 
world come along with it — and the ma- 
chinery of the heart, in virtue of which it 
must have something to grasp, or some- 
thing to adhere to, brings it under a kind 
of moral necessity to be actuated just as 
before — and in utter repulsion towards a 
state so unkindly as that of being frozen 
out both of delight and of desire, does it 
feel all the warmth and the urgency of its 
wonted solicitations — nor in the habit and 
history of the whole man, can we detect so 
much as one symptom of the new creature 
— so that the church, instead of being to 
him a school of obedience, has been a mere 
sauntering place for the luxury of a pass- 
ing and theatrical emotion ; and the preach- 
ing which is mighty to compel the attend- 
ance of multitudes, which is mighty to still 
and to solemnize the hearers into a kind 
of tragic sensibility, which is mighty in the 
play of variety and vigour that it can keep 
up around the imagination, is not mighty to 
the pulling down of strong-holds. 

The love of the world cannot be expung- 
ed by a mere demonstration of the world's 
worthlessness. But may it not be supplant- 
ed by the love of that which is more wor- 
thy than itself? The heart cannot be pre- 
vailed upon to part with the world, by a 
simple act of resignation. But may not 
the heart be prevailed upon to admit into 
its preference another, who shall subordi- 
nate the world, and bring it down from its 
wonted ascendency 1 ^If the throne which 
is placed there, must nave an occupier, and 
the tyrant that now reigns has occupied it 
wrongfully, he may not leave a bosom 
which would rather detain him, than be 
left in desolation. But may he not give 
way to the lawful sovereign, appearing 
with every charm that can secure his will- 
ing admittance, and taking unto himself his 
great power to subdue the moral nature of 
man, and to reign over it 1 In a word, if 
the way to disengage the heart from the 
positive love of one great and ascendent 
object, is to fasten it in positive love to an- 
other, then it is not by exposing the worth- 
lessness of the former, but by addressing to 
the mental eye the worth and excellence of 
the latter, that all old things are to be done 
away, and all things are to become new. 

To obliterate all our present affections, by 
simply expunging them, and so as to leave 



the seat of them unoccupied, would be to 
destroy the old character, and to substitue 
no new character in its place. But when 
they take their departure upon the ingress 
of other visitors ; when they resign their 
sway to the power and the predominance 
of new affections; when, abandoning the 
heart to solitude, they merely give place to 
a successor who turns it into as busy a 
residence of desire, and interest, and ex- 
pectation as before — there is nothing in all 
this to thwart or to overbear any of the 
laws of our sentient nature — and we see 
how, in fullest accordance with the me- 
chanism of the heart, a great moral revolu- 
tion may be made to take place upon it. 

This, we trust, will explain the operation 
of that charm which accompanies the effec- 
tual preaching of the gospel. The love of 
God, and the love of the world, are two 
affections, not merely in a state of rival- 
ship, but in a state of enmity — and that so 
irreconcilable, that they cannot dwell to- 
gether in the same bosom. We have al- 
ready affirmed how impossible it were for 
the heart, by any innate elasticity of its 
own, to cast the world away from it, and 
thus reduce itself to a wilderness. The 
heart is not so constituted, and the only 
way to dispossess it of an old affection, is 
by the expulsive power of a new one. No- 
thing can exceed the magnitude of the re- 
quired change in a man's character— when 
bidden as he is in the New Testament, to 
love not the world ; no, nor any of the 
things that are in the world — for this so 
comprehends all that is dear to him in 
existence, as to be equivalent to a com- 
mand of self-annihilation. But the same 
revelation which dictates so mighty an 
obedience, places within our reach as 
mighty an instrument of obedience. It 
brings for admittance, to the very door of 
our heart, an affection which, once seated 
upon its throne, will either subordinate 
every previous inmate, or bid it away. Be- 
side the world, it places before the eye of 
the mind, him who made the world, and 
with this peculiarity, which is all its own 
— that in the Gospel do we so behold God, 
as that we may love God. It is there, and 
there only, where God stands revealed as 
an object of confidence to sinners — and 
where our desire after him is not chilled 
into apathy, by that barrier of human guilt 
which intercepts every approach that is 
not made to him through the appointed 
Mediator. It is the bringing in of this bet- 
ter hope, whereby we draw nigh unto God 
— and to live without hope, is to live with- 
out God, and if the heart be without God, 
the world will then have all the ascendency. 
It is God apprehended by the believer as 
God in Christ, who alone can dispost it 
from this ascendency. It is when he stands 
dismantled of the terrors which belong to 



II.] 



THE EXPULSIVE POWER OF A NEW AFFECTION. 



385 



him as an offended lawgiver, and when we 
are enabled by faith, which is his own gift, 
to see his glory in the face of Jesus Christ, 
and to hear his beseeching voice, as it pro- 
tests good will to men, and entreats the 
return of all who will to a full pardon, and 
a gracious acceptance— it is then, that a 
love paramount to the love of the world, 
and at length expulsive of it, first arises in 
the regenerating bosom. It is when re- 
leased from the spirit of bondage, with 
which love cannot dwell, and when admit- 
ted into the number of God's children, 
through the faith that is in Christ Jesus, 
the spirit of adoption is poured upon us — it 
is then that the heart, brought under the 
mastery of one great and predominant af- 
fection, is delivered from the tyranny of 
its former desires, and in the only way in 
which deliverance is possible. And that 
faith which is revealed to us from heaven, 
as indispensable to a sinner's justification 
in the sight of God, is also the instrument 
of the greatest of all moral and spiritual 
achievements on a nature dead to the in- 
fluence, and beyond the reach of every 
other application. 

Thus may we come to perceive what it 
is that makes the most effective kind of 
preaching. It is not enough to hold out 
to the world's eye the mirror of its own 
imperfections. It is not enough to come 
forth with a demonstration, however pa- 
thetic, of the evanescent character of all its 
enjoyments. It is not enough to travel 
the walk of experience along with you, 
and speak to your own conscience, and 
vour own recollection of the deceitfulness 
of the heart, and the deceitfulness of all 
that the heart is set upon. There is many a 
bearer of the Gospel message, who has not 
shrewdness of natural discernment enough, 
and who has not power of characteristic de- 
scription enough, and who has not the talent 
of moral delineation enough, to present you 
with a vivid and faithful sketch of the ex- 
isting follies of society. But that very 
corruption which he has not the faculty of 
representing in its visible details, he may 
practically be the instrument of eradicating 
in its principle. Let him be but a faithful 
expounder of the gospel testimony. — Un- 
able as he may be to apply a descriptive 
hand to the character of the present world, 
let him but report with accuracy the mat- 
ter which revelation has brought to him 
from a distant world, — unskilled as he is in 
the work of so anatomizing the heart, as 
with the power of a novelist to create a 
graphical or impressive exhibition of the 
worthlessness of its many affections — let 
him only deal in those mysteries of peculiar 
doctrine, on which the best of novelists 
have thrown the wantonness of their deri- 
sion. He may not be able, with the eye 
of shrewd and satirical observation, to ex- 
3 C 



pose to the ready recognition of his hearers 
the desires of worldliness — but with the 
tidings of the gospel in commission, he 
may wield the only engine that can extir- 
pate them. He cannot do what some have 
done, when, as if by the hand of a ma- 
gician, they have brought out to view, 
from the hidden recesses of our nature, the 
foibles and lurking appetites which belong 
to it. — But he has a truth in his possession, 
which into whatever heart it enters, will, 
like the rod of Aaron, swallow up them all 
— and unqualified as he may be, to describe 
the old man in all the nicer shading of his 
natural and constitutional varieties, with 
him is deposited that ascendent influence un- 
der which the leading tastes and tendencies 
of the old man are destroyed, and he becomes 
a new creature in Jesus Christ our Lord. 

Let us not cease, then, to ply the only 
instrument of powerful and positive opera- 
tion, to do away from you the love of the 
world. Let us try every legitimate method 
of finding access to your hearts for the love 
of him who is greater than the world. For 
this purpose, let us, if possible, clear away 
that shroud of unbelief which so hides and 
darkens the face of the Deity. Let us in- 
sist on his claims to your affection — and 
whether in the shape of gratitude, or in the 
shape of esteem, let us never cease to affirm, 
that in the whole of that wondrous econo- 
my, the purpose of which is to reclaim a 
sinful w r orld unto himself — he, the God of 
love, so sets himself forth in characters of 
endearment, that nought but faith, and 
nought but understanding, are wanting, on 
your part, to call forth the love of your 
hearts back again. 

And here let me advert to the incredulity 
of a worldly man ; when he brings his own 
sound and secular experience to bear upon 
the high doctrines of Christianity — when 
he looks on regeneration as a thing impos- 
sible — when feeling as he does, the obsti- 
nacies of his own heart on the side of 
things present, and casting an intelligent 
eye, much exercised perhaps in the obser- 
vation of human life, on the equal obstina- 
cies of all who are around him, he pro- 
nounces this whole matter about the cruci- 
fixion of the old man, and the resurrection 
of a new man in his place, to be in down- 
right opposition to all that is known and 
witnessed of the real nature of humanity. 
We think that we have seen such men, 
who, firmly trenched in their own vigorous 
and homebred sagacity, and shrewdly re- 
gardful of all that passes before them 
through the week, and upon the scenes of 
ordinary business, look on that transition 
of the heart by which it gradually dies 
unto time, and awakens in all the life of a 
new-felt and ever-growing desire towards 
God, as a mere Sabbath speculation ; and 
who thus, with all their attention engrossed 



386 



THE EXPULSIVE POWER 



OF A NEW AFFECTION. 



[SERM. 



upon the concerns of earthliness, continue 
unmoved, to the end of their days, amongst 
the feelings, and the appetites, and the pur- 
suits of earthliness. If the thought of death, 
and another state of being after it, comes 
across them at all, it is not with a change 
so radical as that of being born again, that 
they ever connect the idea of preparation. 
They have some vague conception of its 
being quite enough that they acquit them- 
selves in some decent and tolerable way 
|sf their relative obligations ; and that, upon 
'i% strength of some such social and do- 
mestic moralities as are often realized by 
him in whose heart the love of God has 
never entered, they will be transplanted in 
safety from this world, where God is the 
Being with whom it may almost be said, 
that they have had nothing to do, to that 
world where God is the Being with whom 
they will have mainly and immediately to 
do throughout all eternity. They admit all 
that is said of the utter vanity of time, when 
taken up with as a resting place. But they 
resist every application made upon the 
heart of man, with the view of so shifting 
its tendencies, that it shall not henceforth 
find in the interests of time, all its rest and 
all its refreshment. They, in fact, regard 
such an attempt as an enterprise that is al- 
together aerial — and with a tone of secular 
wisdom, caught from the familiarities of 
every-day experience, do they see a vision- 
ary character in all that is said of setting 
our affections on the things that are above ; 
and of walking by faith ; and of keeping 
our hearts in such a love of God as shall 
shut out from them the love of the world ; 
and of having no confidence in the flesh ; 
and of so renouncing earthly things as to 
have our conversation in heaven. 

Now, it is altogether worthy of being re- 
marked of those men who thus disrelish 
spiritual Christianity, and, in fact, deem it 
an impracticable acquirement, how much 
of a piece their incredulity about the de- 
mands of Christianity, and their incredulity 
about the doctrines of Christianity, are with 
one another. No wonder that they feel the 
work of the New Testament to be beyond 
their strength, so long as they hold the 
words of the New Testament to be beneath 
their attention. Neither they nor any one 
else can dispossess the heart of an old af- 
fection, but by the impulsive power of a new 
one — and, if that new* affection be the love 
of God, neither they nor any one else can 
be made to entertain it, but on such a re- 
presentation of the Deity, as shall draw the 
heart of the sinner towards him. Now 
it is just their unbelief which screens 
from the discernment of their minds this 
representation. They do not see the love 
of God in sending his Son into the world. 
They do not see the expression of his ten- 
derness to men, in sparing him not, but 



1 giving him up unto the death for us all. They 
do not see the sufficiency of the atonement, 
or of the sufferings that were endured by 
him who bore the burden that sinners 
should have borne. They do not see the 
blended holiness and compassion of the 
Godhead, in that he passed by the trans- 
gressions of his creatures, yet could not 
pass them by without an expiation. It is a 
mystery to them, how a man should pass 
to the state of godliness from a state of na- 
ture — but had they only a believing view 
of God manifest in the flesh, this would re 
solve for them the whole mystery of godli- 
ness. As it is, they cannot get quit of 
their old affections, because they are out 
of sight from all those truths which have 
influence to raise a new one. They are like 
the children of Israel in the land of Egypt, 
when required to make bricks without straw 
— they cannot love God, while they want 
the only food which can aliment this affection 
in a sinner's bosom — and however great 
their errors may be both in resisting the de- 
mands of the Gospel as impracticable, and 
in rejecting the doctrines of the Gospel as 
inadmissible, yet there is not a spiritual 
man (and it is the prerogative of him who 
is spiritual to judge all men) who will not 
perceive that there is a consistency in these 
errors. 

But if there be a consistency in the errors, 
in like manner is there a consistency in the 
truths which are opposite to them. The 
man who believes in the peculiar doctrines, 
will readily bow to the peculiar demands 
of Christianity. When he is told to love 
God supremely, this may startle another, 
but it will not startle him to whom God has 
been revealed in peace, and in pardon, and 
in all the freeness of an offered reconcilia- 
tion. When told to shut out the world from 
his heart, this may be impossible with him 
who has nothing to replace it — but not im- 
possible with him, who has found in God 
a sure and a satisfying portion. When told 
to withdraw his affections from the things 
that are beneath, this were laying an order 
of self-extinction upon the man, who knows 
not another quarter in the whole sphere of 
his contemplation, to which he could trans- 
fer them — but it were not grievous to him 
whose view has been opened up to the love- 
liness and glory of the things that are 
above, and can there find, for every feeling 
of his soul, a most ample and delighted oc- 
cupation. When told to look not to the 
things that are seen and temporal, this were 
blotting out the light of all that is visible 
from the prospect of him in whose eye 
there is a wall of partition between guilty 
nature and the joys of eternity— but he 
who believes that Christ hath broken down 
this wall, finds a gathering radiance upon 
his soul, as he looks onwards in faith to 
the things that are unseen and eternal. 



THE EXPULSIVE POWER. OF A NEW AFFECTION. 387 



«.] 

Tell a man to be holy — and how can he 
compass such a performance, when his 
alone fellowship with holiness is a fellow- 
ship of despair ? It is the atonement of the 
cross reconciling the holiness of the law- 
giver with the safety of the offender, that 
hath opened the way for a sanctifying in- 
fluence into the sinner's heart, and he can 
take a kindred impression from the cha- 
racter of God now brought nigh, and now 
at peace with him. Separate the demand 
from the doctrine, and you have either a 
system of righteousness that is impractica- 
ble, or a barren orthodoxy. Bring the de- 
mand and the doctrine together — and the 
true disciple of Christ is able to do the one, 
through the other strengthening him. The 
motive is adequate to the movement ; and 
the bidden obedience of the Gospel is not 
beyond the measure of his strength, just 
because the doctrine of the Gospel is not 
beyond the measure of his acceptance. 
The shield of faith, and the hope of salva- 
tion, and the Word of God, and the girdle of 
truth — these are the armour that he has put 
on ; and with these the battle is won, and the 
eminence is reached, and the man stands on 
the vantage ground of a new field and a new 
prospect. The effect is great, but the cause 
is equal to it — and stupendous as this moral 
resurrection to the precepts of Christianity, 
undoubtedly is, there is an element of 
strength enough to give it being and con- 
tinuance in the principles of Christianity. 

The object of the Gospel is both to pacify 
the sinner's conscience, and to purify his 
heart ; and it is of importance to observe, 
that what mars the one of these objects, 
mars the other also. The best way of cast- 
ing out an impure affection is to admit a 
pure one ; and by the love of what is good, 
to expel the love of what is evil. Thus it 
is, that the freer the Gospel, the more sanc- 
tifying is the Gospel ; and the more it is re- 
ceived as a doctrine of grace, the more will 
it be felt as a doctrine according to godli- 
ness. This is one of the secrets of the 
Christian life, that the more a man holds 
of God as a pensioner, the greater is the 
payment of service that he renders back 
again. On the tenure of " Do this and live," 
a spirit of fearfulness is sure to enter ; and 
the jealousies of a legal bargain chase away 
all confidence from the intercourse between 
God and man ; and the creature striving to 
be square and even with his Creator, is, in 
fact, pursuing all the while his own selfish- 
ness instead of God's glory ; and with all 
the conformities which he labours to ac- 
complish, the soul of obedience is not there, 
the mind is not subject to the law of God, 
nor indeed under such an economy ever 
can be. It is only when, as in the Gospel, 
acceptance is bestowed as a present, with- 
out money and without price, that the se- 
curity which man feels in God is placed 



beyond the reach of disturbance — or, that 
he can repose in him, as one friend reposes 
in another — or, that any liberal and gene- 
rous understanding can be established be- 
twixt them — the one party rejoicing over 
the other to do him good — the other find- 
ing that the truest gladness of his heart lies 
in the impulse of a gratitude, by which it is 
awakened to the charms of a new morr 
existence. Salvation by grace — salvati 
by free grace — salvation not of works, 
according to the mercy of God — salva 
on such a footing is not more indispen? ) ; 
to the deliverance of our persons from die 
hand of justice, than it is to the deliverance 
of our hearts from the chill and the weight 
of ungodliness. Eetain a single shred or 
fragment of legality with the Gospel, and 
you raise a topic of distrust between man 
and God. You take away from the power 
of the Gospel to melt and to conciliate. For 
this purpose, the freer it is, the better it is. 
That very peculiarity which so many dread 
as the germ of Antinomianism, is, in fact, 
the germ of a new spirit, and a new inclina- 
tion against it. Along with the light of a 
free Gospel, does there enter the love of the 
Gospel, which in proportion as you impair 
the freeness, you are sure to chase away. 
And never does the sinner find within him- 
self so mighty a moral transformation, as 
when under the belief that he is saved by 
grace, he feels constrained thereby to offer 
his heart a devoted thing, and to deny un- 
godliness. 

To do any work in the best manner, you 
would make use of the fittest tools for it. 
And we trust, that what has been said may 
serve in some degree, for the practical 
guidance of those who would like to reach 
the great moral achievement of our text — 
but feel that the tendencies and desires of 
Nature are too strong for them. We know 
of no other way by which to keep the love 
of the world out of our heart, than to keep 
in our hearts the love of God — and no other 
way by which to keep our hearts in the 
love of God, than building ourselves up on 
our most holy faith. That denial of the 
world which is not possible to him that dis- 
sents from the Gospel testimony, is possible, 
even as all things are possible to -him that 
believeth. To try this without faith, is to 
work without the right tool or the right in- 
strument. But faith worketh by love ; and 
the way of expelling from the heart the 
love that transgresseth the law, is to admit 
into its receptacles the love which fulfilleth 
the law. 

Conceive a man to be standing on the 
margin of this green world ; and that, when 
he looked towards it, he saw abundance 
smiling upon every field, and all the bless- 
ings which earth can afford, scattered in 
profusion throughout every family, and the 
light of the sun sweetly resting upon all the 



388 



THE SURE WARRANT 0 



F A BELIEVER'S HOPE. 



[SERM. 



pleasant habitations, and the joys of human 
companionship brightening many a happy 
circle of society — conceive this to be the 
general character of the scene upon one 
side of his contemplation ; and that on the 
other, beyond the verge of the goodly 
planet on which he was situated, he could 
descry nothing but a dark and fathomless 
unknown. Think you that he would bid a 
voluntary adieu to all the brightness and 
all the beauty that were before him upon 
earth, and commit himself to the frightful 
solitude away from it. Would he leave its 
peopled dwelling places, and become a soli- 
tary wanderer through the fields of non- 
entity ? If space offered him nothing but a 
wilderness, would he for it abandon the 
homebred scenes of life and of cheerfulness 
that lay so near, and exerted such a power 
of urgency to detain him ? Would not he 
cling to the regions of sense, and of life, and 
of society? — and shrinking away from the 
desolation that was beyond it, would not he 
be glad to keep his firm footing on the ter- 
ritory of this world, and to take shelter under 
the silver canopy that was stretched over it ? 

But if, during the time of his contempla- 
tion, some happy island of the blest had 
floated by; and there had burst upon his 
senses the light of its surpassing glories, and 



its sounds of sweeter melody ; and he clearly 
saw, that there, a purer beauty rested upon 
every field, and a more heart-felt joy spread 
itself among all the families ; and he could 
discern there a peace, and a piety, and a 
benevolence, which put a moral gladness 
into every bosom, and united the whole so- 
ciety in one rejoicing sympathy with each 
other, and with the beneficent Father of 
them all. — Could he further see, that pain 
and mortality were there unknown; and 
above all, that signals of welcome were 
hung out, and an avenue of communication 
was made for him — perceive you not, that 
what was before the wilderness, would be- 
come the land of invitation ; and that now 
the world would be the wilderness ? What 
unpeopled space could not do, can be done 
by space teeming with beatific scenes, and 
beatific society. And let the existing ten- 
dencies of the heart be what they may to 
the scene that is near and visible around us, 
still if another stood revealed to the pros- 
pect of man, either through the channel of 
faith, or through the channel of his senses — 
then, without violence done to the consti- 
tution of his moral nature, may he die unto 
the present world, and live to the lovelier 
world that stands in the distance away 
from it. 



SERMON III. 
The sure Warrant of a Believer's Hope, 

M For if, when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son : much more, being 
reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.''' — Romans v. 10. 



St. Paul, who, by the way, is by far the 
most argumentative of all the Apostles — 
and who, from being the most successful of 
them all, proves that argument is both a 
legitimate and a powerful weapon in the 
work of making Christians, sometimes un- 
dertakes to reason upon one set of premises, 
and then to demonstrate how much more 
valid and irresistible is the conclusion which 
he tries to establish, when he is in actual 
possession of another and more favourable 
set of premises. In this way a great addi- 
tional strength is made to accrue to his ar- 
gument — and the how much more with 
which he finishes, causes it to come with 
greater power and assurance upon his rea- 
ders — and it is this which gives him the 
advantage of what is well known, both in 
law and in logic, under the phrase of avgu- 
mentum a fortiore, or, an argument which 
affirms a thing to be true in adverse and 
unpromising circumstances, and therefore 
far more worthy of being held true in like- 
lier circumstances. It is quite a familiar 



mode of reasoning in common discourse. 
If a neighbour be bound to sympathise with 
the distresses of an unfortunate family, how 
much more, when that neighbour is a re- 
lative? If I obtained an offer of friendship 
from a man in difficulties, how much more 
may I count upon it should he now be 
translated into a state of sufficiency and 
ease ? If, in the very heat of our quarrel, 
and under the discouragement of all my pro- 
voking insolence towards him, my enemy 
forbear the vengeance which he had the 
power to inflict, how much more, should 
the. quarrel be made up, and I have been 
long in terms of reconciliation with him, 
may I feel myself secure from the effects 
of his indignation? Such also is the argu- 
ment of my text. There is one state of mat- 
ters in which God sets forth a demonstra- 
tion of friendship to the world, and this is 
compared with the present and actual state 
of matters, mo#e favourable than the former, 
and from which, therefore, the friendship 
of God may be still more surely inferred, 



III.] 



THE SURE WARRANT OF A BELIEVER'S HOPE. 



389 



and still more firmly confided in. But it 
will be further seen,* that in this short sen- 
tence of the Apostle, there lies a compound 
argument which admits of being separated 
into distinct parts. There is a reference 
made to a two-fold state of matters, which, 
by being resolved into its two particulars, 
brings out two accessions of strength to the 
conclusion of our Apostle, which are inde- 
pendent of each other. He, in fact, holds 
forth a double claim upon our understand- 
ing, and we propose to view successively 
the two particulars of which it is made up. 

There is first, then, a comparison made 
between one state of matters, and another 
state of matters which obtain in our earth — 
and there is at the same time a comparison 
made between one state of matters, and 
another state of matters which obtain in 
heaven — and from each of these there may 
be educed an argument for strengthening 
the assurance of every. Christian, in that 
salvation which the Gospel has made known 
to us. 

Let us first look, then, to the two states 
upon earth — and this may be done either 
with a reference to this world's history, or 
it may be done with a reference to the per- 
sonal history of every one man who is now 
a believer. 

That point of time in the series of ge- 
neral history at which reconciliation was 
made, was when our Saviour said that it is 
finished, and gave up the ghost. God may 
be said to have then become reconciled to 
the world, in as far as he was ready to enter 
into agreement with all who drew nigh in 
the name of this great propitiation. Now 
think of the state of matters upon earth, 
previous to the time when reconciliation in 
this view was entered upon. Think of the 
strength of that moving principle in the 
bosom of the Deity, which so inclined him 
towards a world then lying in the depths of 
ungodliness — and from one end to another 
of it, lifting the cry of rebellion against him. 
There was no movement on the part of the 
world towards God — no returning sense of 
allegiance towards him from whom they 
had revolted so deeply — no abatement of 
that profligacy which so rioted at large over 
a wide scene of lawless, and thankless, and 
careless abandonment — no mitigation of that 
foul and audacious insolence by which the 
throne of heaven was assailed ; and a spec- 
tacle so full of offence to the unfallen was 
held forth, of a whole province in arms 
against the lawful Monarch of creation. 
Had the world thrown down its weapons 
of disobedience — had a contrite and relent- 
ing spirit gone previously forth among its 
generations — had the light which even then 
glimmered in the veriest wilds of Pagan- 
ism, just up to the strength and degree of 
its influence, told aright on the moral 
sensibilities of the deluded and licentious 



worshippers — had they, whose conscience 
was a law unto themselves, just acted and 
followed on as they might under the guid- 
ance of its compunctious visitations — had 
there been any thing like the forth-going 
of a general desire, however faint, towards 
that unknown Being, the sense and impres- 
sion of whom were never wholly oblite- 
rated — then it might have been less decisive 
of God's will for reconciliation, that he gave 
way to these returning demonstrations on 
the part of his alienated creatures, and 
reared a pathway of communication by 
which sinners may draw nigh unto God. 
But for God to have done this very thing, 
when these sinners were persisting in the 
full spirit and determination of their unholy 
warfare — for him to have done so, when in- 
stead of any returning loyalty rising up to 
him like the incense of a sweet-smelling 
savour, the exhalations of idolatry and vice 
blackened the whole canopy of heaven, 
and ascended in a smoke of abomination 
before him — for him to have done so at the 
very time that all flesh had corrupted its 
ways, and when either with or without the 
law of revelation, God saw that the wicked- 
ness of man was great in the earth, and that 
every imagination of the thoughts of his 
heart was only evil continually — in these 
circumstances of deep and unalleviated pro- 
vocation, and when God may have eased 
him of his adversaries, by sweeping the 
whole of this moral nuisance away from 
the face of the universe which it deformed — 
for such a time to have been a time of love, 
when majesty seemed to call for some so- 
lemn vindication, but mercy could not let 
us go — surely, if through such a barrier be- 
tween God and the guilty, he, in the long- 
ings of his desire after them, forced a path- 
way of reconciliation, he never will turn 
himself away from any, who, cheered for- 
ward by his own intreaties, are walking 
upon that path. But if, when enemies, he 
himself found out an approach by which 
he might beckon them to enter into peace 
with him, how much more when they are 
so approaching, will he meet them with the 
light of his countenance, and bless them 
with the joys of his salvation. 

But this argument may be looked to in 
another way. Instead of fixing our regards 
upon that point in the general history of the 
world, when the avenue was struck out be- 
tween our species and their offended Law- 
giver ; and through the rent vail of. a Sa- 
viour's flesh, a free and consecrated way of 
access was opened for the guiltiest of them 
all — let a believer in Christ fix his regards 
upon that passage in his own personal his- 
tory at which he was drawn in his desires 
and in his confidence to this great Mediator, 
and entered upon the grace wherein he now 
stands, and gave up his evil heart of unbe- 
lief, and made his transition out of dark- 



390 



THE SURE WARRANT OF A BELIEVER'S HOPE. 



[SERM. 



ness to the marvellous light of the Gospel. 
Let him compare what he was, when an 
alien from God, through wicked works of 
his own, with what he is when a humble 
but confiding expectant of God's mercy 
through the righteousness of another. Who 
translated him into the condition which he 
now occupies ? Who put into his heart the 
faith of the Gospel ? Who awakened him 
from the dormancy and unconcern of na- 
ture ? Who stirred up that restless but salu- 
tary alarm which at length issued in the 
secure feeling of reconciliation ? There was 
a time of his past life when the whole doc- 
trine of salvation was an offence to him, 
when its preaching was foolishness to his 
ears ; when its phraseology tired and dis- 
gusted him ; when, in light and lawless 
companionship, he put the warnings of reli- 
gious counsel, and the urgency of menacing 
sermons away from his bosom — a time when 
the world was his all, and when he was 
wholly given over to the idolatry of its 
pursuits, and pleasures, and projects of ag- 
grandizement — a time when his heart was 
unvisited with any permanent seriousness 
about God, of whom his conscience some- 
times reminded him, but whom he soon 
dismissed from his earnest contemplation — 
a time when he may have occasionally 
heard of a judgment, but without one prac- 
tical movement of his soul towards the task 
of* preparation — a time when the overtures 
of peace met him on his way, but which 
he, in the impetuous prosecution of his own 
objects, utterly disregarded — a time when 
death plied him with its ever-recurring me- 
mentoes, but which he, overlooking the 
short and summary arithmetic of the few 
little years that lay between him and the 
last messenger, placed so far on the back- 
ground of his anticipation, that this earth, 
this passing and perishable earth, formed 
the scene of all his solicitudes. Is there 
none here present who remembers such a 
time of his by-gone history, and with such 
a character of alienation from God and from 
his Christ, as I have nOw given to it ? And 
who, I ask, recalled him from this aliena- 
tion? By whose guidance was he con- 
ducted to that demonstration either of the 
press or of the pulpit, which awakened him? 
Who sent that afflictive visitation to his 
door, which weaned his spirit from the 
world, and wooed it to the deathless friend- 
ships, and the ever-during felicities of hea- 
ven ? Who made known to him the extent 
of his guilt, with the overpassing extent of 
the redemption that is provided for it ? It 
was not he himself who originated the pro- 
cess of his own salvation. God. may have 
abandoned him to his own courses; and 
said of him as he has done of many others, 
" I. will let him alone, since he will have it 
so ;" and given him up to that judicial blind 
ness, under which the vast majority of the 



world are now sleeping in profoundest leth- 
argy; and withheld altogether that light of 
the spirit which he had done so much to 
extinguish. But if, instead of all this, God 
kept by him in the midst of his thankless 
provocations — and while he was yet a re- 
gardless enemy, made his designs of grace 
to bear upon him — and throughout all the 
mazes of his chequered history, conducted 
him to the knowledge of himself as a recon- 
ciling God — and so softened his heart with 
family bereavements, or so tore it from all 
its worldly dependencies by the disasters of 
business, or so shook it with frightful agi- 
tation by the terrors of the law, or so shone 
upon it with the light of his free Spirit, as 
made it glad to escape from the treachery 
of nature's joys and nature's promises, into 
a relying faith on the offers and assurances 
of the Gospel — why, just let him think of 
the time when God did so much for him — 
and then think of the impossibility that God 
will recede from him now, or that he will 
cease from the prosecution of that work in 
circumstances of earnest and desirous con- 
currence on the part of the believer, which he 
himself begun in the circumstances either 
of his torpid unconcern, or of his active and 
haughty defiance. The God who moved 
towards him in his days of forgetfulness, 
will not move away from him in his days 
of hourly and habitual remembrance — and 
he who intercepted him in his career of re- 
bellion, will not withdraw from him in his 
career of new obedience — and he who first 
knocked at the door of his conscience, and 
that too in a prayerless, and thankless, and 
regardless season of his history, will not, 
now that he prays in the name of Christ, 
and now that his heart is set upon salva- 
tion, and now that the doctrine of grace 
forms all his joy and all his dependence ; 
he who thus found him out a distant and 
exiled rebel, will not abandon him now that 
his fellowship is with the Father, and with 
the Son. It is thus that the believer may 
shield his misgiving heart from all its des- 
pondencies. It is thus that the argument of 
the text goes to fortify his faith, and to per- 
fect that which is lacking in it. It is thus 
that the how much more of the Apostles 
should cause him to abound more and more 
in the peace and the joy of believing — and 
should encourage every man who has laid 
hold on the hope set before us, to steady 
and confirm his hold still more tenaciously 
than before, so as to keep it fast and sure 
even unto the end. 

With a man who knows himself to be a 
believer, this argument is quite irresistible, 
and it will go to establish his faith, and to 
strengthen it, and to settle it, and to make 
it perfect. But it is possible for a man really 
to believe, and yet to be in ignorance for a , 
time whether he does so or not — and it is 
possible for a man to be in earnest about 



III. I 



THE SURE WARRANT OF A BELIEVER'S HOPE. 



391 



his soul, and yet not to have received that 
truth which is unto salvation — and it is pos- 
sible for him to be actuated by a strong 
general desire to be right, and yet to be 
walking among the elements of uncertain- 
ty — and it is possible for him to be looking 
to that quarter whence the truths of the 
Gospel are offered to his contemplation, and 
yet not to have attained the distinct or satis- 
fying perception of them — thoroughly en- 
gaged in the prosecution of his peace with 
God, determinedly bent on this object as the 
highest interest he can possibly aspire after, 
labouring after a settlement, and, under all 
the agonies of a fierce internal war, seeking, 
and toiling, and praying for his deliverance. 
It is at the point of time when faith en- 
ters the heart, that reconciliation is entered 
upon — nor can we say of this man, that he 
is yet a believer, or, that he has passed from 
the condition of an enemy to that of a friend. 
And yet upon him the argument of the text 
should not be without its efficacy. It is 
such an argument as may be employed not 
merely to confirm the faith which already 
exists, but to help on to its formation that 
faith which is struggling for an establish- 
ment in the heart of an inquirer. It falls, 
no doubt, with fullest and most satisfying 
light upon the heart of a conscious be- 
liever — and yet may it be addressed, and 
with pertinency too, to men under their first 
and earliest visitations of seriousness. For 
give me an acquaintance of whom I kno\# 
nothing more than that his face is towards 
Zion — give me one arrested by a sense of 
guilt and of danger, and merely groping 
his way to a place of enlargement — give 
me a soul not in peace, but in perplexity, 
and in the midst of all those initial difficul- 
ties which beset the awakened sinner, ere 
Christ shall give him light — give me a la- 
bouring and heavy laden sinner, haunted 
by the reflection, as if by an arrow sticking 
fast, that the mighty question of his eter- 
nity is yet unresolved. There are many I 
fear amongst you to whom this tremendous 
uncertainty gives no concern — but give me 
one who has newly taken it up, and who, 
in the minglings of doubt and despondency, 
has not found his way to any consolation — 
and even with him may it be found, that 
the same reason which strengthens the hope 
of an advanced Christian, may well inspire 
the hope of him who has still his Christian- 
ity to find, and thus cast a cheering and a 
comforting influence on the very infancy of 
his progress. For if it was in behalf of a 
careless world that the costly apparatus of 
redemption was reared — if it was in the 
full front and audacity of their most deter- 
mined rebellion, that God laid the plan of 
reconciliation — if it was for the sake of men 
sunk in the very depths of ungodliness, that 
he constructed his overtures of peace, and 
sent forth his Son with them amongst our 



loathsome and polluted dwelling-places— if 
to get at his strayed children, he had thus 
to find his way through all those elements 
of impiety and ungodliness, which are most 
abhorrent to the sanctity of his nature, think 
you, my brethren, think you that the God 
who made such an advancing movement 
towards the men whose faces were utterly 
away from him — is this a God who will 
turn his own face away from the man who 
is moving towards God, and earnestly seek- 
ing after him, if haply he may find him? 

This argument obtains great additional 
force, when we look to the state of matters 
in heaven at the time that we upon earth 
were enemies, and compare it with the state 
of matters in heaven, now that we are ac- 
tually reconciled, or are beginning to enter- 
tain the offers of reconciliation. Before the 
work of our redemption, Jesus Christ was 
in primeval glory — and though a place of 
mystery to us, it was a place of secure and 
ineffable enjoyment — insomuch, that the 
fondest prayer he could utter in the depths 
of his humiliation, was to be taken back 
again to the ancient of days, and there to be 
restored to the glory which he had with 
him before the world was. It was from the 
heights of celestial security and blessedness 
that he looked with an eye of pity on our 
sinful habitation — it was from a scene where 
beings of a holy nature surrounded him, 
and the full homage of the Divinity was 
rendered to him, and in the ecstacies of his 
fellowship with God the Father, all was 
peace, and purity, and excellence — it was 
from this that he took his voluntary depar- 
ture, and went out on his errand to seek 
and to save us. And it was not the parade 
of an unreal suffering that he had to en- 
counter; but a deep and a dreadful endur- 
ance — it was not a triumphant promenade 
through this lower world, made easy over 
all its obstacles by the energies of his God- 
head ; but a conflict of toil and of strenuous- 
ness — it was not an egress from heaven on 
a journey brightened through all its stages 
by the hope of a smooth and gentle return; 
but it was such an exile from heaven as 
made his ascent and his readmittance there 
the fruit of a hard won victory. We have 
nothing but the facts of revelation to guide 
or to inform us, and yet from these we most 
assuredly gather, that the Saviour, in step- 
ping down from the elevation of his past 
eternity, incurred a substantial degradation 
— that when he wrapped himself in the hu- 
manity of our nature, he put on the whole 
of its infirmities and its sorrows — that for 
the joy which he renounced, he became 
acquainted with grief, and a grief, too, 
commensurate to the whole burden of our 
world's atonement — that the hidings of his 
Father's countenance were terrifying to his 
soul— and when the offended justice of the 
Godhead was laid upon his person, it re- 



892 



THE SURE WARRANT OF A BELIEVER'S HOPE. 



[*SERM. 



quired the whole strength of the Godhead 
to sustain it. What mean the agonies of the 
garden? What mean the bitter cries and 
complainings of abandonment upon the 
cross? What meaneth the prayer that the 
cup might pass away from him, and the 
struggle of a lofty resolution with the ago- 
nies of a mighty and unknown distress, and 
the evident symptoms of a great and toil- 
some achievement throughout the whole 
progress of this undertaking, and angels 
looking down from their eminences, as on 
a field of contest where a great Captain had 
to put forth the travailing of his strength, 
and to spoil principalities and powers, and 
to make a show of them openly ? Was there 
nothing in all this, do you think, but the 
mockery of a humiliation that was never 
felt — the mockery of a pain that was never 
suffered — the mockery of a battle that was 
never fought? No, my brethren, be assured 
that there was, on that day, a real vindica- 
tion of God's insulted majesty. On that day 
there was the real transference of an aveng- 
ing hand, from the heads of the guilty to the 
head of the innocent. On that day one man 
died for the people, and there was an actual 
laying on of the iniquities of us all. It was 
a war of strength and of suffering in highest 
possible aggravation because the war of ele- 
ments which were infinite. The wrath 
which millions should have borne, was all 
of it discharged. Nor do we estimate aright 
what we owe of love and obligation to the 
Saviour, till we believe, that the whole of 
that fury, which if poured out upon the 
world, would have served its guilty genera- 
tions through eternity — that all of it was 
poured into the cup of expiation. 

A more adequate sense of this might not 
only serve to awaken the gratitude which 
slumbers within us, and is dead — it might 
also, through the aid of the argument in my 
text, awaken and assure our confidence. If 
when we were enemies, Christ ventured on 
an enterprise so painful — if, when loathsome 
outcasts from the sacred territory of hea- 
ven, he left the abode of his Father, and 
exchanged love, and adoration, and con- 
genial felicity among angels, for the hatred 
and persecution of men — if, when the ago- 
nies of the coming vengeance were still be- 
fore him, and the dark and dreary vale of 
suffering had yet to be entered upon, and he 
had to pass under the inflictions of that 
sword which the eternal God awakened 
against his Fellow, and he had still to give 
himself up to a death equivalent in the 
amount of its soreness to the devouring fire, 
and the everlasting burnings, which but for 
him believers would have borne— if, when 
all this had yet to be travelled through, he 
nevertheless, in his compassionate longing 
for the souls of men, went forth upon the 
errand of winning them to himself, — let us 
just look to the state of matters in heaven 



then, and compare it with the state of mat- 
ters now. 

Christ has there ascended on the wings 
of victory— and he is now sitting at God's 
right hand, amid all the purchased triumphs 
of his obedience — and the toil, and the con- 
flict, and the agony, are now over — and 
from that throne of mediatorship to which 
he has been exalted, is it his present office 
to welcome the approaches of all who come, 
and to save to the uttermost all who put 
their trust in him. And is it possible, we 
would ask, my brethren, is it possible that 
he who died to atone, now that he lives, 
will not live to make intercession for us? 
Can the love for men which bore him 
through a mighty and a painful sacrifice, 
not be strong enough to carry him onwards 
in peace and in triumph to its final consum- 
mation? Will he now abandon that work 
which his own hands have so laboriously 
reared? — or leave the cause for which he 
has already sustained the weight of such an 
endurance, in the embryo and unfinished 
state of an abortive undertaking? Will he 
cast away from him the spoils of that vic- 
tory for which he bled ; and how can it be 
imagined for a moment, but by such dark 
and misgiving hearts as ours, that he whose 
love for a thankless world carried him 
through the heat and the severity of a con- 
test that is now ended, will ever, with the 
cold and forbidding glance of an altered 
tountenance spurn an inquiring world away 
from him? 

The death of a crucified Saviour, when 
beheld under such a view, is the firm step- 
ping stone to confidence in a risen Saviour. 
You may learn from it that his desire and 
your salvation are most thoroughly at one. 
Of his good-will to have you into heaven, 
he has given the strongest pledge and de- 
monstration, by consecrating, with his own 
blood, a way of access, through which sin- 
ners may draw nigh. And now, that as our 
forerunner, he is already there — now that 
he has gone up again to the place from 
which he arose— now that to the very place 
which he left to die, and that, that the bar- 
rier to its entrance from our world may be 
moved away, he has ascended alive and in 
glory, without another death to endure, for 
death has no more the dominion over him— 
will ever he do any thing to close that en- 
trance which it has cost him so much to 
open ? Will he thus throw away the toil 
and the travail of his own soul, and reduce 
to impotency that apparatus of reconcilia- 
tion which he himself has reared, and at an 
expense, too, equal to the penance of many 
millions through eternity? What he died to 
begin, will he not now live to carry for- 
ward; and will not the love which could 
force a way through the grave to its ac- 
complishments—now that it has reached 
the summit of triumph and of elevation 



IH.] 



THE SURE WARRANT 



OF A BELIEVER'S HOPE. 



3P3 



which he at present occupies, burst forth 
and around the field of that mighty enter- 
prise, which was begun in deepest suffering, 
and will end in full and finished glory? 

This is a good argument in all the stages 
of a man's Christianity. Whether he has 
found, or is only seeking — whether he be 
in a state of faith, or in a state of inquiry — 
whether a believer like Paul and many of 
the disciples that he was addressing, or an 
earnest and convinced sinner groping the 
way of deliverance, and labouring to be at 
rest, there may be made to emanate from 
the present circumstances of our Saviour, 
and the position that he now occupies, an 
argument either to perpetuate the confi- 
dence where it is, or to inspire it where it 
is not. If, when an enemy, I was reconciled, 
and that too by his death — if he laid down 
his life to remove an obstacle in the way of 
my salvation, how much more, now that he 
has taken it up, will he not accomplish that 
salvation ? It is just fulfilling his own desire. 
It is just prospering forward the very cause 
that his heart is set upon. It is just follow- 
ing out the facilities which he himself has 
opened — and marching onward in glorious 
procession, to the consummation of those 
triumphs, for which he had to struggle his 
way through a season of difficulties that are 
now over. It is thus that the believer rea- 
sons himself into a steadier assurance than 
before— and peace may be made to flow 
through his heart like a mighty river — and 
resting on the foundation of Christ, he 
comes to feel himself in a sure and wealthy 
place— and the good-will of the Saviour 
rises into an undoubted axiom — so as to 
chase away all his distrust, and cause him 
to delight himself greatly in the riches of 
his present grace, and in the brightening 
certainty of his coming salvation. 

And this view of the matter is not only 
fitted to heighten the confidence that is al- 
ready formed — but also to originate the con- 
fidence that needs to be inspired. It places 
the herald of salvation on a secure and lofty 
vantage ground. It seals and authenticates 
the offer with which he is intrusted— and 
with which he may go round among the 
guiltiest of this world's population. It en- 
ables him to say, that for guilt even in the 
season of its most proud and unrepentant 
defiance, did Christ give himself up unto 
the death — and that to guilt even in this 
state of hardihood, Christ in prosecution of 
his own work has commissioned him to go 
with the overtures of purchased mercy — 
and should the guilt which has stood its 
ground against the threatenings of power, 
feel softened and arrested by pity's prevent- 
ing call, may the preacher of forgiveness 
affirm in his Master's name, that he, who 
for the chief of sinners, bowed himself down 
unto the sacrifice, will not now, that he has 
arisen a Prince and a Saviour, stamp a nul- 
3 D 



lity upon that contest, the triumph of which 
is awaiting him ; but the bitterness of which 
has passed away. He will not turn with 
indifference and distaste from that very fruit 
which he himself has fought for. But if for 
guilt in its full impenitency, he dyed his 
garments, and waded through the arena of 
contest and of blood— then should the most 
abandoned of her children begin a contrite 
movement towards him, it is not he who 
will either break the prop for which he 
feels, or quench his infant aspiration. He 
will look to him as the travail of his own 
soul, and in him he will be satisfied. 

We know not what the measure of the 
sinfulness is of any who now hear us. But 
we know, that however foul his depravity, 
and however deep the crimson dye of his 
manifold iniquities may be, the measure of 
the gospel warrant reaches even unto him. 
It was to make an inroad on the territory 
of Satan, and reclaim from it a kingdom 
unto himself, that Christ died — and I speak 
to the farthest off in guilt and alienation 
amongst you — take the overture of peace 
that is now brought to your door, and you 
will add to that kingdom which he came to 
establish, and take away from that king- 
dom which he came to destroy. The free- 
ness of this Gospel has the honour of him 
who liveth and was dead for its guarantee. 
The security of the sinner and the glory 
of the Saviour, are at one. And with the 
spirit of a monarch who had to fight his 
way to the dominion which was rightfully 
his own, will he hail the returning alle- 
giance of every rebel, as a new accession to 
his triumphs, as another trophy to the might 
and the glory of his great undertaking. 

But, amid all this latitude of call and of 
invitation, let me press upon you that alter- 
native character of the Gospel, to which I 
have often adverted. I have tried to make 
known to you, how its encouragements 
rise the one above the other to him who 
moves towards it. But it has its correspond- 
ing terrors and severities, which also rise 
the one above the other to him who moves 
away from it. If the transgressor will not 
be recalled by the invitation which I have 
now made known to him, he will be rivet- 
ted thereby into deeper and more hopeless 
condemnation. If the offer of peace be not 
entertained by him, then, in the very pro- 
portion of its largeness and generosity, will 
the provocation be of his insulting treat- 
ment in having rejected it. Out of the 
mouth of the Son of man there cometh a 
two-edged sword. There is pardon free as 
the light of heaven to all who will. There 
is wrath, accumulated and irretrievable 
wrath, to all who will not. "Kiss the Son, 
therefore, lest he be angry, and ye perish 
from the way : when his wrath is kindled 
but a little, blessed only are they who put 
their trust in him." 



394 



THE SURE WARRANT 



OF A BELIEVER'S HOPE. 



[SERM. 



It is the most delusive of all calculations 
to put off the acceptance of the Gospel, be- 
cause of its freeness — and because it is free 
at all times — and because the present you 
think may be the time of your unconcern 
and liberty, and some distant future be the 
time of your return through that door 
which will still be open for you. The door 
of Christ's Mediatorship is ever open, till 
death puts its unchangeable seal upon your 
eternity. But the door of your own heart, 
if you are not receiving him, is shut at 
this moment, and every day is it fixing 
and fastening more closely — and long ere 
death summon you away, may it at length 
settle immoveably upon its hinges, and the 
voice of him who standeth without, and 
knocketh, may be unheard by the spiritual 
ear — and, therefore, you are not made to 
feel too much, though you feel as earnestly 
as if now or never was the alternative on 
which you were suspended. It is not 
enough, that the Word of God, compared 
to a hammer, be weighty and powerful. 
The material on which it works must be 
capable of an impression. It is not enough, 
that there be a free and forcible applica- 
tion. There must be a willing subject. 
You are unwilling now, and therefore it is 
that conversion does not follow. To-mor- 
row the probability is, that you will be still 
more unwilling — and, therefore, though the 
application be the same, the conversion is 
still at a greater distance away from you. 
And thus, while the application continues 
the same, the subject hardens, and a good 
result is ever becoming more and more 
unlikely — and thus may it go on till you 
arrive upon the bed of your last sickness, 
at the confines of eternity — and what, I 
would ask, is the kind of willingness that 
comes upon you then ? Willing to escape 
the pain of hell — this you are now, but yet 
not willing to be a Christian. Willing that 
the fire and your bodily sensations be 
kept at a distance from each other — this 
you are now, for who of you at present, 
would thrust his hand among the flames ? 
Willing that the frame of your animal sen- 
sibilities shall meet with nothing to wound 
or torture it — this is willingness of which 
the lower animals, incapable of religion, 
are yet as capable as yourself. You will 
be as willing then for deliverance from 
material torments as you can be now — but 
there is a willingness which you want now, 
and which, in all likelihood, will then be 
still more beyond the reach of your attain- 
ment. If the free Gospel do not meet with 
your willingness now to accept and sub- 
mit to it, neither may it then. And I know 
not, my brethren, what has been your ex- 
perience in death-beds, but sure I am, that 
both among the agonies of mortal disease, 
and the terrors of the malefactor's cell, 
Christ may be offered, and the offer be 



sadly and sullenly put away. The free 
proclamation is heard without one accom- 
panying charm — and the man who refused 
to lay hold of it through life, finds, that in 
the impotency of his expiring grasp, he 
cannot apprehend it. And O, if you but 
knew how often the word of faith may fall 
from the minister, and the work of faith be 
left undone upon the dying man, never 
would you so postpone the purposes of se- 
riousness, or look forward to the last week 
of your abode upon earth as to the conve- 
nient season for winding up the concerns 
of a neglected eternity. 

If you look attentively to the text, you 
will find that there is something more than 
a shade of difference between being recon- 
ciled and being saved. Reconciliation is 
spoken of as an event that has already 
happened — salvation as an event that is to 
come. The one event may lead to the 
other; but there is a real distinction be- 
tween them. It is true, that the salvation 
instanced in the preceding verse, is salva- 
vation from wrath. But it is the wrath 
which is incurred by those who have sin- 
ned wilfully, after they had come to the 
knowledge of the truth — " when there re- 
maineth no more sacrifice for sin, but a 
certain fearful looking for of judgment and 
fiery indignation, which shall devour the 
adversaries." Jesus Christ will save us 
from this by saving us from sin. He who 
hath reconciled us by his death, will, by his 
life, accomplish for us this salvation. Re- 
conciliation is not salvation. It is only the 
portal to it. Justification is not the end of 
Christ's coming — it is only the means to 
an ultimate attainment. By his death he 
pacified the lawgiver. By his life he puri- 
fies the sinner. The one work is finished. 
The other is not so, but it is only going on 
unto perfection. And this is the secret of 
that unwillingness which I have already 
touched upon. There is a willingness that 
God would lift off from their persons the 
hand of an avenger. But there is not a 
willingness that Christ would lay upon 
their persons the hand of a sanctifier. The 
motive for him to apprehend them is to 
make them holy. But they care not to ap- 
prehend that for which they are appre- 
hended. They see not that the use of the 
new dispensation, is for them to be restored 
to the image they have lost, and, for this 
purpose to be purged from their old sins. 
This is the point on which they are in 
darkness — "and they love the darkness 
rather than the light, because their deeds 
are evil." They are at all times willing for 
the reward without the service. But they 
are not willing for the reward and the ser- 
vice together. The willingness for the one 
they always have. But the willingness for' 
both they never have. They have it not 
to-day— and it is not the operation of time 



THE RESTLESSNESS OF HUMAN AMBITION. 



395 



that will put it in them to-morrow. Nor 
will disease put it in. Nor will age put it 
in. Nor will the tokens of death put it in. 
Nor will the near and terrific view of eter- 
nity put it in. It may call out into a livelier 
sensation than before, a willingness for the 
reward. But it will neither inspire a taste 
nor a willingness for the service. A dis- 
taste for God and godliness, as it was the 



reigning and paramount principle of his 
life, so may it be the reigning and para- 
mount principle of his death-bed. As it 
envenomed every breath which he drew, 
so may it envenom his last — and the spirit 
going forth to the God who gave it, with 
all the . enmity that it ever had, God will 
deal with it as with an enemy. 



SERMON IV. 



The Restlessness of human Ambition. 

" How say ye to my soul, Flee as a bird to your mountain ? — O that I had the wings of a dove, that I may 
fly away, and be at rest." — Psalm xi. 1. and lv. 6. 



To all those who are conversant in the 
scenery of external nature, it is evident, 
that an object to be seen to the greatest ad- 
vantage must be placed at a certain distance 
from the eye of the observer. The poor 
man's hut, though all within be raggedness 
and disorder, and all around it be full of the 
most nauseous and disgusting spectacles — 
yet, if seen at a sufficient distance, may ap- 
pear a sweet and interesting cottage. That 
field where the thistle grows, and the face 
of which is deformed by the wild exuber- 
ance of a rank and pernicious vegetation, 
may delight the eye of a distant spectator 
by the loveliness of its verdure. That lake, 
whose waters are corrupted, and whose 
banks poison the air by their marshy and 
putrid exhalations, may charm the eye of 
an enthusiast, who views it from an adjoin- 
ing eminence, and dwells with rapture on 
the quietness of its surface, and on the 
beauty of its outline — its sweet border 
fringed with the gayest colouring of Na- 
ture, and on w r hich spring lavishes its finest 
ornaments. All is the effect of distance. It 
softens the harsh and disgusting features of 
every object. What is gross and ordinary, 
it can dress in the most romantic attrac- 
tions. The country hamlet it can transform 
into a paradise of beauty, in spite of the 
abominations that are at every door, and 
the angry brawlings of the men and the 
women who occupy it. All that is loath- 
some and offensive, is softened down by the 
power of distance. You see the smoke 
rising in fantastic wreaths through the pure 
air, and the village spire peeping from among 
the thick verdure of the trees, which embo- 
som it. The fancy of our sentimentalist 
swells with pleasure, and peace and piety 
supply their delightful associations to com- 
plete the harmony of the picture. 

This principle may serve to explain a 
feeling w T hich some of you who now hear 
me may have experienced. On a fine day, 



when the sun threw its unclouded splen- 
dours over a whole neighbourhood, did you 
never form a wish that your place could be 
transferred to some distant and more beau- 
tiful part of the landscape 1 Did the idea 
never rise in your fancy, that the people 
w r ho sport on yon sunny bank are happier 
than yourself — that you would like to be 
buried in that distant grove, and forget, for a 
while, in silence and in solitude, the distrac- 
tions of the w r orld — that you would like to 
repose by yon beautiful rivulet, and soothe 
every anxiety of your heart by the gentle- 
ness of its murmurs — that you would, like 
to transport yourself to the distance of miles, 
and there enjoy the peace which resides in 
some sweet and sheltered concealment? In 
a word, was there no secret aspiration of the 
soul for another place than what you actu- 
ally occupied? Instead of resting in the 
quiet enjoyment of your present situation, 
did not your wishes wander abroad and 
around you — and were not you ready to ex- 
claim with the Psalmist in the text, " O that 
I had the wings of a dove ; for I would fly 
to yonder mountain, and be at rest ?" 

But what is of most importance to be ob- 
served is, that even when you have reached 
the mountain, rest is as far from you as ever. 
As you get nearer the wished-for spot, the 
fairy enchantments in which distance had 
arrayed it, gradually disappear ; when you 
at last arrive at your object, the illusion is 
entirely dissipated ; and you are grieved to 
find, that you have carried the same princi- 
ple of restlessness and discontent along with 
you. 

Now, what is true of a natural landscape, 
is also true of that moral landscape^ which 
is presented to the eye of the mind w r hen it 
contemplates human life, and casts a wide 
survey over the face of human society. The 
position which I myself occupy is seen and 
felt with all its disadvantages. Its vexations 
come home to my feelings with all the cer 



390 



THE RESTLESSNESS 



OF HUMAN AMBITION. 



[SERM. 



tainty of experience. I see it before mine 
eyes with a vision so near and intimate, as 
to admit of no colouring, and to preclude the 
exercise of fancy. It is only in those situa- 
tions which are without me, where the prin- 
ciple of deception operates, and where the 
vacancies of an imperfect experience are 
filled up by the power of imagination, ever 
ready to summon the fairest forms of pure 
and unmingled enjoyment. It is all resolva- 
ble, as before, into the principle of distance. 
I am too far removed to see the smaller 
features of the object which I contemplate. 
I overlook the operation of those minuter 
causes, which expose every situation of hu- 
man life to the inroads of misery and dis- 
appointment. Mine eye can only take in the 
broader outlines of the object before me, 
and it consigns to fancy the task of filling 
them up with its finest colouring. 

Am I unlearned ? I feel the disgrace of 
ignorance, and sigh for the name and the 
distinctions of philosophy. Do I stand upon 
a literary eminence? I feel the vexations of 
rivalship, and could almost renounce the 
splendours of my dear-bought reputation 
for the peace and shelter which insigni- 
ficance bestows. Am I poor? I riot in 
fancy upon the gratifications of luxury, and 
think how great I would be, if invested with 
all the consequence of wealth and of pa- 
tronage. Am I rich ? I sicken at the de- 
ceitful splendour which surrounds me, and 
am at times tempted to think, that I would 
have been happier far, if, born to a humbler 
station, I had been trained to the peace and 
innocence of poverty. Am I immersed in 
business ? I repine at the fatigues of em- 
ployment, and envy the lot of those who 
have every hour at their disposal, and can 
spend all their time in the sweet relaxations 
of amusement and society. Am I exempted 
from the necessity of exertion ? I feel the 
corroding anxieties of indolence, and at- 
tempt in vain to escape that weariness and 
disgust which useful and regular occupation 
can alone save me from. Am I single ? I 
feel the dreariness of solitude, and my fancy 
warms at the conception of a dear and do- 
mestic circle. Am I embroiled in the cares 
of a family ? I am tormented with the per- 
verseness or ingratitude of those around 
me ; and sigh in all the bitterness of repent- 
ance, over the rash and irrecoverable step 
by which I have renounced for ever the 
charms of independence. 

This, in fact, is the grand principle of hu- 
man ambition, and it serves to explain both 
its restlessness and its vanity. What is pre- 
sent is seen in all its minuteness, and we 
overlook not a single article in the train of 
little drawbacks, and difficulties and disap- 
pointments. What is distant is seen under 
a broad and general aspect, and the illu- 
sions of fancy are substituted in those places 
which we cannot fill up with the details of 



actual observation. What is present fills me 
with disgust. What is distant allures me 
to enterprise. I sigh for an office, the busi- 
ness of which is more congenial to my tem- 
per. I fix mine eye on some lofty eminence 
in the scale of preferment. I spurn at the 
condition which I now occupy, and I look 
around me and above me. The perpetual 
tendency is not to enjoy his actual position, 
but to get away from it — and not an indivi- 
dual amongst us who does not every day of 
his life join in the aspiration of the Psalmist, 
" O that I had the wings of a dove, that I 
may fly to yonder mountain, and be at 
rest." 

But the truth is, that we never rest. The 
most regular and stationary being on the face 
of the earth, has something to look forward 
to, and something to aspire after. He must 
realize that sum to which he annexes the 
idea of a competency. He must add that 
piece of ground which he thinks necessary 
to complete the domain of which he is the 
proprietor. He must secure that office which 
confers so much honour and emolument 
upon the holder. Even after every effort 
of personal ambition is exhausted, he has 
friends and children to provide for. The 
care of those who are to come after him, 
lands him in a never-ending train of hopes, 
and wishes, and anxieties. O that I could 
gain the vote and the patronage of this ho- 
nourable acquaintance — or, that I could se- 
cure the political influence of that great man 
who honours me with an occasional call, 
and addressed me the other day with a cor- 
diality which was quite bewitching — or that 
my young friend could succeed in his com- 
petition for the lucrative vacancy to which 
I have been looking forward, for years, with 
all the eagerness which distance and uncer- 
tainty could inspire — or that we could fix 
the purposes of that capricious and unac- 
countable wanderer, who, of late indeed has 
been very particular in his attentions, and 
whose connection we acknowledge, in se- 
cret, would be an honour and an advantage 
to our family — or, at all events, let me heap 
wealth and aggrandizement on that son, who 
is to be the representative of my name, and 
is to perpetuate that dynasty which I have 
had the glory of establishing. 

This restless ambition is not peculiar to 
any one class of society. A court only 
offers to one's notice a more exalted theatre 
for the play of rivalship and political en- 
terprise. In the bosom of a cottage, you 
may witness the operation of the very same 
principle, only directed to objects of greater 
insignificance— and though a place for my 
girl, or an apprenticeship for my boy, be all 
that I aspire after, yet an enlightened ob- 
server of the human character will per- 
ceive in it the same eagerness of competi- 
tion, the same jealousy, the same malicious 
attempts to undermine the success of a more 



IV.] 



THE RESTLESSNESS OF HUMAN AMBITION. 



397 



likely pretender, the same busy train of pas- 
sions and anxieties which animate the ex- 
ertions of him who struggles for precedency 
in the cabinet, and lifts his ambitious eye to 
the management of an empire. 

This is the universal property of our na- 
ture. In the whole circle of your experience, 
did you ever see a man sit down to the full 
enjoyment of the present, without a hope 
or a wish unsatisfied? Did he carry in his 
mind no reference to futurity — no longing 
of the soul after some remote or inaccessible 
object— no day-dream which played its en- 
chantments around him, and which, even 
when accomplished, left him nothing more 
than the delirium of a momentary triumph ? 
Did you never see him, after the bright illu- 
sions of novelty were over — when the pre- 
sent object had lost its charm, and the dis- 
tant begun to practise its allurements — when 
some gay vision of futurity had hurried him 
on to a new enterprise, and in the fatigues 
of a restless ambition, he felt a bosom as 
oppressed with care, and a heart as anxious 
and dissatisfied as ever ? 

This is the true, though the curious, and 
I had almost said, the farcical picture of hu- 
man life. Look into the heart which is the 
seat of feeling, and you there perceive a 
perpetual tendency to enjoyment, but not 
enjoyment itself— the cheerfulness of hope, 
but not the happiness of actual posses- 
sion. The present is but an instant of 
time. The moment you call it your own, 
it abandons you. It is not the actual sensa- 
tion which occupies the mind. It is what is 
to come next. Man lives in futurity. The 
pleasurable feeling of the moment forms al- 
most no part of his happiness. It is not the 
reality of to-day which interests his heart. 
It is the vision of to-morrow. It is the dis- 
tant object on which fancy has thrown its de- 
ceitful splendour. When to-morrow comes, 
the animating hope is transformed into the 
dull and insipid reality. As the distant ob- 
ject draws near, it becomes cold and taste- 
less, and uninteresting. The only way in 
which the mind can support itself, is by re- 
curring to some new anticipation. This 
may give buoyancy for a time — but it will 
share the fate of all its predecessors, and be 
the addition of another folly to the wretched 
train of disappointments that have gone be- 
fore it. 

What a curious object of contemplation 
to a superior being, who casts an eye over 
this lower world, and surveys the busy, 
restless, and unceasing operations of the 
people who swarm upon its surface. Let 
him select any one individual amongst us, 
and confine his attention to him as a speci- 
men of the whole. Let him pursue him 
through the intricate variety of his move- 
ments, for he is never stationary ; see him 
with his eye fixed upon some distant ob- 
ject, and struggling to arrive at it; see him I 



pressing forward to some eminence which 
perpetually recedes away from him; see 
the inexplicable being, as he runs in full 
pursuit of some glittering bauble, and on 
the moment he reaches it, throws it behind 
him, and it is forgotten ; see him unmindful 
of his past experience, and hurrying his 
footsteps to some new object with the same 
eagerness and rapidity as ever ; compare the 
ecstacy of hope with the lifelessness of pos- 
session, and observe the whole history of 
his day to be made up of one fatiguing race 
of vanity, and restlessness, and disappoint- 
ment; 

" And, like the glittering of an idiot's toy, 
Doth Fancy mock his vows." 

To complete the unaccountable history, 
let us look to its termination. Man is irre- 
gular in his movements, but this does not 
hinder the regularity of Nature. Time will 
not stand still to look at us. It moves at its 
own invariable pace. The winged moments 
fly in swift succession over us. The great 
luminaries which are suspended on high, 
perform their cycles in the heaven. The 
sun describes his circuit in the firmament, 
and the space of a few revolutions will bring 
every man among us to his destiny. The 
decree passes abroad against the poor child 
of infatuation. It meets him in the full ca- 
reer of hope and of enterprise. He sees the 
dark curtain of mortality falling upon the 
world, and upon all its interests. That 
busy, restless heart, so crowded with its 
plans, and feelings, and anticipations, for- 
gets to play, and all its fluttering anxieties 
are hushed for ever. 

Where, then, is that resting-place which 
the Psalmist aspired after ? What are we 
to mean by that mountain, that wilderness, 
to which he prayed that the wings of a dove 
may convey him, afar from the noise and 
distractions of the world, and hasten his 
escape from the windy storm, and the tem- 
pest ? Is there no object, in the whole round 
of human enjoyment, which can give rest 
to the agitated spirit of man ? Will he not 
sit down in the fulness of contentment, after 
he has reached it, and bid a final adieu to 
the cares and fatigues of ambition ? Is this 
longing of the mind a principle of his na- 
ture, which no gratification can extinguish ? 
Must it condemn him to perpetual agitation, 
and to the wild impulses of an ambition 
which is never satisfied ? 

We allow that exercise is the health of 
the mind. It is better to engage in a trifling 
pursuit, if innocent, than to watch the me- 
lancholy progress of time, and drag out a 
weary existence in all the languor of a con- 
suming indolence. But nobody will deny 
that it is better still, if the pursuit in which 
we are engaged be not a trifling one — if it 
conducts to some lasting gratification — if it 
leads to some object, the possession of 
which confers more happiness than the 



398 



THE RESTLESSNESS OF HUMAN AMBITION. 



[SERM. 



mere prospect — if the mere pleasure of the 
chase is not the only recompense — but 
where, in addition to this, we secure some 
reward proportioned to the fatigue of the 
exercise, and that justifies the eagerness 
with which we embarked in it. So long as 
the exercise is innocent, better do something 
than be idle: but better still, when the 
something we do, leads to a valuable and 
important termination. Any thing rather 
than the ignoble condition of that mind 
which feels the burden of itself — and which 
knows not how to dispose of the weary 
hours that hang so oppressively upon it. 
But there is certainly a ground of preference 
in the objects which invite us to exertion — 
and better far to fix upon that object which 
leaves happiness and satisfaction behind it, 
than dissipate your vigour in a pursuit 
which terminates in nothing — and where 
the mere pleasure of occupation is the only 
circumstance to recommend it. When we 
talk of the vanity of ambition, we do not 
propose to extinguish the principles of our 
nature, but to give them a more useful and 
exalted direction. A state of hope and of 
activity is the element of man — and all that 
we propose, is to withdraw his hopes from 
the deceitful objects of fancy, and to engage 
his activity in the pursuit of real and per- 
manent enjoyments. 

Man must have an object to look forward 
to. Without this incitement the mind lan- 
guishes. It is thrown out of its element, 
and, in this unnatural suspension of its 
powers, it feels a dreariness, and a discom- 
fort, far more unsufferable than it ever ex- 
perienced from the visitations of a real or 
positive calamity. If such an object does 
not offer, he will create one for himself. 
The mere possession of wealth, and of all 
its enjoyments, will not satisfy him. Pos- 
session carries along with it the dulness of 
certainty, and to escape from this dulness, 
he will transform it into an uncertainty— he 
will embark it in a hazardous speculation, 
or he will stake it at the gaming-table ; and 
from no other principle than that he may 
exchange the lifelessness of possession, for 
the animating sensations of hope and of en- 
terprise. It is a paradox in the moral con- 
stitution of man; but the experience of 
every day confirms it — that man follows 
what he knows to be a delusion, with as 
much eagerness, as if he were assured of its 
reality. Put the question to him, and he 
will tell you, that if you were to lay before 
him all the profits which his fancy antici- 
pates, he would long as much as ever for 
some new speculation ; or, in other words, 
be as much dissatisfied as ever with the po- 
sition which he actually occupies — and yet, 
with his eye perfectly open to this circum- 
stance, will he embark every power of his 
mind in the chase of what he knows to be 
>a mockery and a phantom. 



Now, to find fault with man for the plea- 
sure which he derives from the mere ex- 
citement of a distant object, would be to 
find fault with the constitution of his nature. 
It is not the general principle of his activity 
which I condemn. It is the direction of 
that activity to a useless and unprofitable 
object. The mere happiness of the pursuit 
does not supersede the choice of the object. 
Even though you were to keep religion out 
of sight altogether, and bring the conduct 
of man to the test of worldly principles, you 
still presuppose a ground of preference in 
the object. Why is the part of the sober 
and industrious tradesman preferred to that 
of the dissipated gambler? Both feel the 
delights of a mind fully occupied with 
something to excite and to animate. But 
the exertions of the one lead to the safe en- 
joyment of a competency. The exertions 
of the other lead to an object which, at best, 
is precarious, and often land you in the hor- 
rors of poverty and disgrace. The mere 
pleasure of exertion is not enough to justify 
every kind of it: you must look forward to 
the object and the termination — and it is 
the judicious choice of the object which, 
even in the estimation of worldly wisdom, 
forms the great point of distinction betwixt 
prudence and folly. Now, all that I ask of 
you, is to extend the application of the same 
principle to a life of religion. Compare the 
wisdom of the children of light, with the 
wisdom of a blind and worldly generation ; 
the prudence of the Christian who labours 
for immortality, with the prudence of him 
who labours for the objects of a vain and 
perishable ambition. Contrast the littleness 
of time, with the greatness of eternity — the 
restless and unsatisfying pleasures of the 
world, with the enjoyments of heaven, so 
pure, so substantial, so unfading — and tell 
me which plays the higher game — he, all 
whose anxiety is frittered away on the pur- 
suits of a scene that is ever shifting, and 
ever transitory; or he, who contemplates 
the life of man in all its magnitude ; who 
acts upon the wide and comprehensive sur- 
vey of its interests, and takes into his esti- 
mate the mighty roll of innumerable ages. 

There is no resting-place to be found on 
this side of time. It is the doctrine of the 
Bible, and all experience loudly proclaims 
it. I do not ask you to listen to the com- 
plaints of the poor, or the murmurs of the 
disappointed. Take your lesson from the 
veriest favourite of fortune. See him placed 
in a prouder eminence than he ever aspired 
after. See him arrayed in brighter colours 
than ever dazzled his early imagination. 
See him surrounded with all the homage 
that fame and flattery can bestow— and af- 
ter you have suffered this parading exterior 
to practise its deceitfulness upon you, enter, 
into his solitude— mark his busy, restless, 
dissatisfied eye, as it wanders uncertain on 



v.J 



THE TFANSITORY NATURE OF VISIBLE THINGS. 



399 



every object — enter into his mind, and tell 
me if repose or enjoyment be there; see 
him the poor victim of chagrin and disquie- 
tude — mark his heart as it nauseates the 
splendour which encompasses him — and 
tell me, if you have not learned, in the 
truest and most affecting characters, that 
even in the full tide of a triumphant ambi- 
tion, "man labours for the meat which 
perisheth, and for the food which satisfleth 
not." 

What meaneth this restlessness of our 
nature ? What meaneth this unceasing ac- 
tivity which longs for exercise and employ- 
ment, even after every object is gained, 
which first roused it to enterprise ? What 
mean those unmeasurable longings, which 
no gratification can extinguish, and which 
still continue to agitate the heart of man, 
even in the fulness of plenty and of enjoy- 
ment. If they mean any thing at all, they 
mean, that all which this world can offer, is 
not enough to fill up his capacity for hap- 



piness — that time is too small for him, and 
he is born for something beyond it — that 
the scene of his earthly existence is too 
limited, and he is formed to expatiate in a 
wider and a grander theatre — that a nobler 
destiny is reserved for him — and that to 
accomplish the purpose of his being, he 
must soar above the littleness of the world, 
and aim at a loftier prize. 

It forms the peculiar honour and excel- 
lence of religion, that it accommodates to 
this property of our nature — that it holds 
out a prize suited to our high calling — that 
there is a grandeur in its objects, which 
can fill and surpass the imagination — that it 
dignifies the present scene by connecting it 
with eternity — that it reveals to the eye of 
faith the glories of an imperishable world — 
and how, from the high eminences of hea- 
ven, a cloud of witnesses are looking down 
upon earth, not as a scene for the petty 
anxieties of time, but as a splendid theatre 
for the ambition of immortal spirits. 



SERMON V. 



The transitory Nature of visible Things. 
"The things that are seen are temporal." — 2 Corinthians iv. 18. 



The assertion that the things which are 
seen are temporal, holds true in the abso- 
lute and universal sense of it. They had a 
beginning, and they will have an end. 
Should we go upwards through the stream 
of ages that are past, we come to a time 
when they were not. Should we go on- 
ward through the stream of ages that are 
before us, we come to a time when they 
will be no more. It is indeed a most mys- 
terious flight which the imagination ven- 
tures upon, when it goes back to the eter- 
nity that is behind us — when it mounts its 
ascending way through the millions and 
the millions of years that are already gone 
through, and stop where it may, it finds the 
line of its march always lengthening be- 
yond it, and losing itself in the obscurity of 
as far removed a distance as ever. It soon 
reaches the commencement of visible things, 
or that point of its progress when God 
made the heavens and the earth. They had 
a beginning, but God had none; and what 
a wonderful field for the fancy to expatiate 
on, when we get above the era of created 
worlds, and think of that period when, in 
respect of all that is visible, the immensity 
around us was one vast and unpeopled soli- 
tude. But God was there in his dwelling- 
place, for it is said of him that he inhabits 
eternity ; and the Son of God was there, for 
we read of the glory which he had with the 



Father before the world was. The mind 
cannot sustain itself under the burden of 
these lofty contemplations. It cannot lift 
the curtain which shrouds the past eternity 
of God. But it is good for the soul to be 
humbled under a sense of its incapacity. It 
is good to realize the impression which too 
often abandons us, that he made us, and not 
we ourselves. It is good to feel how all 
that is temporal lies in passive and pros- 
trate subordination before the will of the un- 
created God. It is good to know how little 
a portion it is that we see of him and of 
his mysterious ways. It is good to lie at 
the feet of his awful and unknown majesty 
--and while secret things belong to him, it 
is good to bring with us all the helplessness 
and docility of children to those revealed 
lessons which belong to us and to our chil- 
dren. 

But this is not the sense in which the 
temporal nature of visible things is taken 
up by the Apostle. It is not that there is a 
time past in which they did not exist — but 
there is a time to come in which they will 
exist no more. He calls them temporal, 
because the time and the duration of their 
existence will have an end. His eye is full 
upon futurity. It is the passing away of 
visible things in the time that is to come, 
and the ever during nature of invisible 
things through the eternity that is to come, 



400 



THE TRANSITORY NATURE OF VISIBLE THINGS. 



[sERlft. 



which the Apostle is contemplating. Now, 
on this one point we say nothing about the 
positive annihilation of the matter of visible 
things. There is reason for believing, that 
some of the matter of our present bodies 
may exist in those more glorified and trans- 
formed bodies which Ave are afterwards to 
occupy. And for any thing we know, the 
matter of the present world, and of the pre- 
sent system may exist in those new heavens 
and that new earth, wherein dwelleth righ- 
teousness. There may be a transfiguration 
of matter without a destruction of it — and, 
therefore it is, that when we assert with 
the Apostle in the text, how things seen 
are temporal, we shall not say more than 
that the substance of these things, if not 
consigned back again to the nothing from 
which they had emerged, will be employed 
in the formation of other things totally dif- 
ferent — that the change will be so great, as 
that all old things may be said to have 
passed away, and all things to become new 
— that after the wreck of the last conflagra- 
tion, the desolated scene will be re-peopled 
with other objects ; the righteous will live 
in another world, and the eye of the glori- 
fied body will open on another field of con- 
templation from that which is now visible 
around us. 

Now, in this sense of the word temporal, 
the assertion of my text may be carried 
round to all that is visible. Even those ob- 
jects which men are most apt to count upon 
as unperishable, because, without any sensi- 
ble decay, they have stood the lapse of 
many ages, will not weather the lapse of 
eternity. This earth will be burnt up. The 
light of yonder sun will be extinguished. 
These stars will cease from their twink- 
ling. The heavens will pass away as a 
scroll — and as to those solid and enormous 
masses which, like the firm world we tread 
upon, roll in mighty circuit through the 
immensity around us, it seems the solemn 
language of revelation of one and all of 
them, that from the face of him who sitteth 
on the throne, the earth and the heavens 
will fly away, and there will be found no 
place for them. 

Even apart from the Bible, the eye of 
observation can witness, in some of the 
hardest and firmest materials of the present 
system, the evidence of its approaching dis- 
solution. What more striking, for example, 
than the natural changes which take place 
on the surface of the world, and which 
prove that the strongest of Nature's ele- 
ments must, at last, yield to the operation 
of time and of decay— that yonder towering 
mountain, though propped by the rocky 
battlements which surround it, must at last 
sink under the power of corruption — that 
every year brings it nearer to its end — that 
at this moment, it is wasting silently away, 
and letting itself down from the lofty emi- 



I nence which it now occupies — that the tor- 
rent which falls from its side never ceases 
to consume its substance, and to carry it 
off in the form of sediment to the ocean — 
that the frost which assails it in the winter 
loosens the solid rock, detaches it in pieces 
from the main precipice, ond makes it fall 
in fragments to its base — that the power 
of the weather scales off the most flinty 
materials, and that the wind of heaven 
scatters them in dust over the surrounding 
country — that even though not anticipated 
by the sudden and awful convulsions of the 
day of God's wrath, nature contains within 
itself the rudiments of decay — that every 
hill must be levelled with the plains, and 
every plain be swept away by the constant 
operation of the rivers which run through 
it — and that, unless renewed by the hand 
of the Almighty, the earth on which we 
are now treading must disappear in the 
mighty roil of ages and of centuries. We 
cannot take our flight to other worlds, or 
have a near view of the changes to which 
they are liable. But surely if this world 
which, with its mighty apparatus of conti- 
nents and islands, looks so healthful and so 
firm after the wear of many centuries, is 
posting visibly to its end, we may be pre- 
pared to believe that the principles of des- 
truction are also at work in other pro- 
vinces of the visible creation — and that 
though of old God laid the foundation of 
the earth, and the heavens are the work of 
his hands, yet they shall perish ; yea, all 
of them shall wax old like a garment, and 
as a vesture shall he change them, and they 
shall be changed. 

We should be out of place in all this style 
of observation, did we not follow it up with 
the sentiment of the Psalmist, " These shall 
perish, but thou shalt endure ; for thou art 
the same, and thy years have no end." 
What a lofty conception does it give us of 
the majesty of God, when we think how he 
sits above, and presides in high authority 
over this mighty series of changes — when 
after sinking under our attempts to trace 
him through the eternity that is behind, we 
look on the present system of things, and 
are taught to believe that it is but a single 
step in the inarch of his grand administra- 
tions through the eternity that is before us 
— when we think of this goodly universe, 
summoned into being to serve some tem- 
porary evolution of his great and mysteri- 
ous plan — when we think of the time when 
it shall be broken up, and out of its disor- 
dered fragments other scenes and other 
systems shall emerge — surely, when fa- 
tigued with the vastness of these contem- 
plations, it well becomes us to do the ho- 
mage of our reverence and wonder to the 
one" Spirit which conceives and animates the 
whole, and to the one noble design which 
runs through all its fluctuations. 



THE TRANSITORY NATURE OF VISIBLE THINGS. 



401 



But there is another way in which the 
objects that are seen are temporal. The 
object may not merely be removed from 
us, but we may be removed from the ob- 
ject. The disappearance of this earth, and 
of these heavens from us, we look upon 
through the dimness of a far-placed futurity. 
It is an event, therefore, which may re- 
gale our imagination ; which may lift our 
mind by its sublimity ; which may disengage 
us in the calm hour of meditation from 
the littleness of life, and of its cares ; and 
which may even throw a clearness and a 
solemnity over our intercourse with God. 
But such an event as this does not come 
home upon our hearts with the urgency of 
a personal interest. It does not carry along 
with it the excitement which lies in the 
nearness of an immediate concern. It does 
not fall with such vivacity upon our con- 
ceptions, as practically to tell on our pur- 
suits, or any of our purposes. It may ele- 
vate and solemnize us, but this effect is 
perfectly consistent with its having as little 
influence on the walk of the living, and the 
moving and the acting man, as a dream of 
poetry. The preacher may think that he 
has done great things with "his eloquence — 
and the hearers may think that great things 
have been done upon them — for they felt a 
fine glow of emotion, when they heard of 
God sitting in the majesty of his high coun- 
sels, over the progress and the destiny of 
created things. But the truth is, my bre- 
thren, that all this kindling of devotion 
which is felt upon the contemplation of his 
greatness, may exist in the same bosom, 
with an utter distaste for the holiness of 
his character ; with an entire alienation of 
the heart and of the habits from the obe- 
dience of his law ; and above all, with a 
most nauseous and invincible contempt for 
the spiritualities of that revelation, in which 
he has actually made known his will and 
his way to us. The devotion of mere taste 
is one thing — the devotion of principle 
is another. And as surely as a man may 
weep over the elegant sufferings of poetry, 
yet add to the real sufferings of life by 
peevishness in his family, and insolence 
among his neighbours — so surely may a 
man be wakened to rapture by the magni- 
ficence of God, while his life is deformed 
by its rebellions, and his heart rankles with 
all the foulness of idolatry against him. 

Well, then, let us try the other way of 
bringing the temporal nature of visible 
things to bear upon your interests. It is 
true, that this earth and these heavens, will 
at length disappear ; but they may outlive 
our posterity for many generations. How- 
ever, if they disappear not from us, weL 
most certainly shall disappear from them. 
They will soon cease to be any thing to 
you — and though the splendour and variety 
of all that is visible around us, should last 
3E 



for thousands of centuries, your eyes will 
soon be closed upon them. The time is 
coming when this goodly scene shall reach 
its positive consummation. But, in all like- 
lihood,, the time is coming much sooner, 
when you shall resign the breath of your 
nostrils, and bid a final adieu to everything 
around you. Let this earth, and these hea- 
vens be as enduring as they may, to you 
they are fugitive as vanity. Time, with its 
mighty strides, will soon reach a future ge- 
neration, and leave the present in death and 
in forgetfulness behind it. The grave will 
close upon every one of you, and that is 
the dark and the silent cavern where no 
voice is heard, and the light of the sun never 
enters. 

But more than this. Though we live too 
short a time to see the great changes which 
are carrying on in the universe, we live 
long enough to see many of its changes — 
and such changes too as are best fitted to 
warn and to teach us ; even the changes 
which take place in society, made up of 
human beings as frail and as fugitive as 
ourselves. Death moves us away from 
many of those objects which are seen and 
temporal — but we live long enough to see 
many of these objects moved away from us 
— to see acquaintances falling every year — 
to see families broken up by the rough and 
unsparing hand of death — to see houses 
and neighbourhoods shifting their inhabi- 
tants — to see a new race, and a new gene- 
ration — and, whether in church or in mar- 
ket, to see unceasing changes in the faces 
of the people who repair to them. We 
know well, that there is a poetic melan- 
choly inspired by such a picture as this, 
which is altogether unfruitful — and that, 
totally apart from religion, a man may 
give way to the luxury of tears, when he 
thinks how friends drop away from him — 
how every year brings along with it some 
sad addition to the registers of death — how 
the kind and hospitable mansion is left with- 
out a tenant— and how, when you knock 
at a neighbour's door, you find that he who 
welcomed you, and made you happy, is no 
longer there. 0 that we could impress by 
all this, a salutary direction on the fears 
and on the consciences of individuals — that 
we could give them a living impression of 
that coming day, when they shall severally 
share in the general wreck of the species — 
when each of you shall be one of the many 
whom the men of the next generation may re- 
member to have lived in yonder street, or la- 
boured in yonder manufactory— when they 
shall speak of you, just as you speak of the 
men of the former generation— who, when 
they died, had a few tears dropped over their 
memory, and for a few years will still con- 
tinue to be talked of. O, could we succeed 
in giving you a real and living impression of 
all this ; and then may we hope to carry the 



402 



THE TRANSITORY NATURE OF VISIBLE THINGS. 



[SERM, 



esson of John the Baptist with energy to 
your fears, " Flee from the coming wrath." 
But there is something so very deceiving in 
the progress of time. Its progress is so 
gradual. To-day is so like yesterday that 
we are not sensible of its departure. We 
should make head against this delusion. 
We should turn to personal account every 
example of change or of mortality. When 
the clock strikes, it should remind you of 
the dying hour. When you hear the sound 
of the funeral bell, you should think, that 
in a little time it will perform for you the 
same office. When you wake in the morn- 
ing, you should think that there has been 
the addition of another day to the life 
that is past, and the subtraction of another 
day from the remainder of your journey. 
When the shades of the evening fall around 
you, you should think of the steady and 
invariable progress of time — how the sun 
moves and moves till it will see you out — 
and how it will continue to move after you 
die, and see out your children's children to 
the latest generations. 

Every thing around us should impress 
the mutability of human affairs. An ac- 
quaintance dies — you will soon follow him. 
A family moves from the neighbourhood — 
learn that the works of man are given to 
change. New familes succeed — sit loose 
to the world, and withdraw your affections 
from its unstable and fluctuating interests. 
Time is rapid, though we observe not its 
rapidity. The days that are past appear 
like the twinkling of a vision. The days 
that are to come will soon have a period, 
and will appear to have performed their 
course with equal rapidity. We talk of 
our fathers and grandfathers, who figured 
their day in the theatre of the world. In a 
little time, we will be the ancestors of a fu- 
ture age. Posterity will talk of us as of the 
men that are gone, and our remembrance 
will soon depart from the face of the coun- 
try. When we attend the burial of an ac- 
quaintance, we see the bones of the men of 
other times — in a few years, our bodies will 
be mangled by the power of corruption, 
and be thrown up in loose and scattered 
fragments among the earth of the new 
made grave. When we wander among the 
tombstones of the church-yard, we can 
scarcely follow the mutilated letters that 
compose the simple story of the inhabitant 
below. In a little time, and the tomb that 
covers us, will moulder by the power of 
the seasons — and the letters will be eaten 
away — and the story that was to perpetuate 
our remembrance, will elude the gaze of 
some future inquirer. 

We know that time is short, but none 
of us know how short. We know that it 
will not go beyond a certain limit of years; 
but none of us know how small the num- 
ber of years, or months, or days may be. 



For death is at work upon all ages. The 
fever of a few days may hurry the likeliest 
of us all from this land of mortality. The 
cold of a few weeks may settle into some 
lingering but irrecoverable disease. In one 
instant the blood of him who has the pro- 
mise of many years, may cease its circula- 
tion. Accident may assail us. A slight 
fall may precipitate us into eternity. An 
exposure to rain may lay us on the bed of 
our last sickness, from which we are never 
more to rise. A little spark may kindle the 
midnight conflagration, which lays a house 
and its inhabitants in ashes. A stroke of 
lightning may arrest the current of life in a 
twinkling. A gust of wind may overturn 
the vessel, and lay the unwary passenger 
in a watery grave. A thousand dangers 
beset us on "the slippery path of this world ; 
and no age is exempted from them — and 
from the infant that hangs on its mother's 
bosom, to the old man who sinks under the 
decrepitude of years, we see death in all its 
woful and affecting varieties. 

You may think it strange — but even still 
we fear, we may have done little in the 
way of sending a fruitful impression into 
your consciences. We are too well aware 
of the distinction between seriousness of 
feeling, and seriousness of principle, to 
think that upon the strength of any such 
moving representation as we are now in- 
dulging in, we shall be able to dissipate 
that confounded spell which chains you to 
the world, to reclaim your wandering af- 
fections, or to send you back to your week- 
day business more pure and more hea- 
venly. But sure we are you ought to be 
convinced, how that all which binds you so 
cleavingly to the dust is infatuation and 
vanity; that there is something most la- 
mentably wrong in your being carried 
away by the delusions of time — and this 
is a conviction which should make you 
feel restless and dissatisfied. We are well 
aware that it is not human eloquence, or 
human illustration, that can accomplish a 
victory over the obstinate principles of hu- 
man corruption — and therefore it is that 
we feel as if we did not advance aright 
through a single step of a sermon, unless 
we look for the influences of that mighty 
Spirit, who alone is able to enlighten and 
arrest you — and may employ even so hum- 
ble an instrument as the voice of a fellow 
mortal, to send into your heart the inspira- 
tion of understanding. 

I now shortly insist on the truth, that 
the things which are not seen are eternal. 
No man hath seen God at any time, and 
he is eternal. It is said of Christ, " whom 
Having not seen, we love, and he is the 
fame to-day, yesterday, and for ever." It 
is said of the Spirit, that, like the wind of 
heaven he eludes the observation, and no 
man can tell of him whence he cometh, or 



v.] 



THE TRANSITORY NATURE OF VISIBLE THINGS. 



403 



whither he goeth— and he is called the 
Eternal Spirit, through whom the Son of- 
fered himself up without spot unto God. 
We are quite aware, that the idea suggest- 
ed by the eternal things which are spoken 
of in our text, is heaven, with all its cir- 
cumstances of splendour and enjoyment. 
This is an object which, even on the prin- 
ciples of taste, we take a delight in contem- 
plating: and it is also an object set before 
us in the Scriptures, though with a very 
sparing and reserved hand. All the de- 
scriptions we have of heaven there, are 
general, very general. We read of the 
beauty of the heavenly crown, of the un- 
fading nature of the heavenly inheritance, 
of the splendour of the heavenly city — and 
these have been seized upon by men ol 
imagination, w T ho, in the construction of 
their fancied paradise, have embellished it 
with every image of peace, and bliss, and 
loveliness ; and, at all events, have thrown 
over it that most kindling of all concep- 
tions, the magnificence of eternity. Now, 
such a picture as this has the certain effect 
of ministering delight to every glowing 
and susceptible imagination. And here lies 
the deep-laid delusion, which we have oc- 
casionally hinted at. A man listens, in 
the first instance, to a pathetic and high- 
wrought narrative on the vanities of time 
— and it touches him even to the tenderness 
of tears. He looks, in the second instance, 
to the fascinating perspective of another 
scene, rising in all the glories of immor- 
tality from the dark ruins of the tomb, and 
he feels within him all those ravishments 
of fancy, which any vision of united gran- 
deur and loveliness would inspire. Take 
these two together, and you have a man 
weeping over the transient vanities of an 
ever-shifting world, and mixing with all 
this softness, an elevation of thought and 
of prospect, as he looks through the vista 
of a futurity, losing itself in the mighty 
range of thousands and thousands of cen- 
turies. And at this point the delusion 
comes in, that here is a man who is all that 
religion would have him to be — a man ! 
weaned from the littleness of the paltry ! 
scene that is around him — soaring high j 
above all the evanescence of things present, 
and things sensible — and transferring every 
affection of his soul to the durabilities of a 
pure and immortal region. It were better 
if this high state of occasional impress- 
ment on the matters of time and of eternity, 
had only the effect of imposing the false- 
hood on others, that man who was so 
touched and so transported, had on that 
single account the temper of a candidate 
for heaven. But the falsehood takes pos- 
session of his own heart. The man is 
pleased with his emotions and his tears — 
and the interpretation he puts upon them 
is, that they come out of the fullness of a 



heart all alive to religion, and sensibly af- 
fected with its charms, and its seriousness, 
and its principle. Now, my brethren, I will 
venture to say, that there may be a world 
of all this kind of enthusiasm, with the 
very man who is not moving a single step 
towards that blessed eternity, over which 
his fancy delights to expatiate. The mov- 
ing representation of the preacher may be 
listened to as a pleasant song — and the en- 
tertained hearer return to all the inveterate 
habits of one of the children of this world. 
It is this, my brethren, which makes me 
fear that a power of deceitfulness may ac- 
company the eloquence of the pulpit — that 
the wisdom of words may defeat the great 
object of a practical work upon the con- 
science — that a something short of a real 
business change in the heart, and in the 
principles of acting, may satisfy the man 
who listens, and admires, and resigns his 
every feeling to the magic of an impressive 
description — that, strangely compounded 
beings as we are, broken loose from God, 
and proving it by the habitual voidness of 
our hearts to a sense of his authority, and 
of his will ; that, blind to the realities of an- 
other world, and slaves to the wretched in- 
fatuation which makes us cleave with the 
full bent of our affections to the one by 
which we are visibly and immediately sur- 
rounded ; that utterly unable, by nature, 
to live above the present scene, while its 
cares, and its interests are plying us every 
hour with their urgency ; that the prey of 
evil passions which darken and distract the 
inner man, and throw us at a wider dis- 
tance from the holy Being who forbids the 
indulgence of them ; and yet with all this 
weight of corruption about us, having minds 
that can seize the vastness of some great 
conception, and can therefore rejoice in the 
expanding loftiness of its own thoughts, as 
it dwells on the wonders of eternity ; and 
having hearts that can move to the impulse 
of a tender consideration, and can, there- 
fore, sadden into melancholy at the dark 
picture of death, and its unrelenting cruel- 
ties ; and having fancies that can brighten 
to the cheerful colouring of some pleasing 
and hopeful representation, and can, there- 
fore, be soothed and animated when some 
sketch is laid before it of a pious family 
emerging from a common sepulchre, and 
on the morning of their joyful resurrection, 
forgetting all the sorrows and separations 
of the dark world that has now rolled over 
them — O, my brethren, we fear, we greatly 
fear it, that while busied with topics such 
as these, many a hearer may weep, or be 
elevated, or take pleasure in the touching 
imagery that is made to play around him, 
while the dust of this perishable earth is all 
that his soul cleaves to; and its cheating 
vanities are all that his heart cares for, or 
his footsteps follow after. 



404 



ON THE UNIVERSALITY OF SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS. 



[SERM. 



The thing is not merely possible — but we 
see in it a stamp of likelihood to all that 
experience tells ns of the nature or the 
habitudes of man. Is there no such thing as 
his having a taste for the beauties of land- 
scape, and, at the same time, turning with 
disgust from what he calls the methodism 
of peculiar Christianity? Might not he be 
an admirer of poetry, and at the same time, 
nauseate with his whole heart, the doctrine 
and the language of the New Testament ? 
Might not he have a fancy that can be re- 
galed by some fair and well-formed vision 
of immortality — and, at the same time, have 



no practical hardihood whatever for the ex- 
ercise of labouring in the prescribed way 
after the meat that endureth ? Surely, sure- 
ly, this is all very possible — and it is just as 
possible, and many we believe to be the in- 
stances we have of it in real life, when an 
eloquent description of heaven is exquisitely 
felt, and wakens in the bosom the raptures 
of the sincerest admiration, among those 
who feel an utter repugnancy to the heaven 
of the Bible — and are not moving a single 
inch through the narrowness of the path 
which leads to it 



SERMON VI. 

On the Universality of spiritual Blindness. 

" Stay yourselves, and wonder ; cry ye out, and cry : they are drunken, but not with wine ; they stagger, but 
not with strong drink. -For the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed 
your eyes : the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered. And the vision of all is become unto 
you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I 
pray thee : and he saith, I cannot ; for it is sealed. And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, 
saying, Read this, I pray thee : and he saith, I am not learned." — Isaiah xxix. 9 — 12. 



What is affirmed in these verses of a 
vision and prophecy, holds so strikingly 
true of God's general revelation to the 
world, that we deem the lesson contained 
in them to be not of partial, but permanent 
application— and we therefore proceed im- 
mediately, to the task of addressing this les- 
son, both to the learned and unlearned of 
the present day. 

Let me, in the first place, dwell for a little 
on the complaints which are uttered by 
these two classes respecting the hidden and 
impenetrable character of the book of God's 
communication — and, in the second place, 
try to explain the nature of that sleep which 
is upon both, and in virtue of which both 
are alike in a state of practical blindness to 
the realities of the divine word— and, in the 
third place, raise a short application upon 
the whole argument. 

I. There is a complaint uttered in these 
verses, first by the learned — and, secondly, 
by the unlearned — and we shall consider 
each of them in order. 

1st. If a book be closed down by a ma- 
terial seal, then, till that seal be broken, 
there lies a material obstacle even in the 
way of him who is able to read the contents 
of it. And we have no doubt, that the pos- 
session of the art of reading would form the 
most visible and prominent distinction, be- 
tween the learned and the unlearned in the 
days of Isaiah. But it no longer, at least in 
our country, forms the distinction between 
these two classes. Many a man who can 
barely read in these days, will still say, and 
say with truth, that he is not learned. We 



must now therefore strike a higher mark of 
distinction — and, in reference to the Bible, 
such a mark can be specified. This book is 
often made the subject of a much higher 
exercise of scholarship than the mere read- 
ing of it. It may be read in its original lan- 
guages. It may be the theme of many a 
laborious commentary. The light of con- 
temporaneous history may be made to shine 
upon it, by the diligence of an exploring an- 
tiquarian. Those powers and habits of criti- 
cism, which are of so much avail towards 
the successful elucidation of the mind and 
meaning of other authors, may all be trans- 
ferred to that volume of which God is the 
author — and what, after all this, it may be 
asked, is the seal or the obstacle which 
stands in the way of learned men of our 
present generation? How is it that any of 
them can now join in the complaint of their 
predecessors, in the days of Isaiah — and 
say, I cannot read this book because it is 
sealed? Or, is there any remaining hin- 
drance still, in virtue of which, the critics, 
and the grammarians, and the accomplished 
theologians of our age, are unable to reach 
the real and effective understanding of the 
words of this prophecy? 

Yes, my brethren, there is such an ob- 
struction as you now inquire after — and it 
is wonderful to tell, how little the mere 
erudition of Scripture helps the real dis- 
cernment of Scripture — how it may be said, 
of many of its most classical expounders, 
that though having eyes, they see not, and 
though having ears, they hear not— how 
doctrine, which if actually perceived and 



VI.J 



ON THE UNIVERSALITY OF SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS. 



405 



credited, would bring the realities of an 
eternal world to bear with effect upon their 
conduct, is, operatively speaking, just as 
weak as if they did not apprehend it even 
in its literal significancy — how the mere 
verbiage of the matter is all in which they 
appear to be conversant, without any actual 
hold of sight, or of conviction, on the sub- 
stance of the matter — how dexterously they 
can play at logic with the terms of the com- 
munication, and how dimly and deficiently 
they apprehend the truths of it — how, after 
having exhausted the uttermost resources 
of scholarship on the attempt of forcing an 
entrance into the region of spiritual mani- 
festation, they only find themselves labour- 
ing at a threshold of height and of difficulty, 
which they cannot scale — how, as if struck 
with blindness, like the men of Sodom, they 
weary themselves in vain to find the door — 
and after having reared their stately argu- 
mentation about the message of peace, they 
have no faith; about the doctrine of godli- 
ness, they have no godliness. 

And it is not enough to say, that all this 
is not due to the want of discernment, but 
to the want of power — for the power lies in 
the truth — and the truth has only to be seen 
or believed, that it may have the power. 
The reflection may never have occurred to 
you — but it is not the less just on that ac- 
count, how little of actual faith there is in 
the world. Many call it a mere want of im- 
pression. We call it a want of belief. Did 
we really believe, that there was a God in 
existence — did we really believe, that with 
the eye of a deeply interested judge, he was 
now scrutinizing all the propensities of our 
heart, and appreciating, with a view to fu- 
ture retribution, all the actions of our his- 
tory—did we really believe, that sin was to 
him that hateful enemy with which he 
could keep no terms, and to which he could 
give no quarter; and that with every indi- 
vidual who had fallen into it, either in its 
guilt it must be expiated, and in its presence 
be finally done away, or the burden of a 
righteous vengeance would rest upon his 
person through eternity — did we really be- 
lieve, that in these circumstances of deepest 
urgency, a way of redemption has been de- 
vised, and that to all whom the tidings of it 
had reached the offer of deliverance, both 
from sin in its condemnation, and from sin 
in its power, was made, through the atoning 
blood and sanctifying spirit of a complete 
and omnipotent Saviour — did we really be- 
lieve, that such an offer was lying at the 
door of every individual, and that his reli- 
ance upon its honesty constituted his ac- 
ceptance of the offer — did we really believe, 
that throughout the fugitive period of our 
abode in this world, which was so soon to 
pass away, God in Christ was beseeching 
every one of us to reconciliation; and even 
now, as if at the place of breaking forth, was 



ready to begin that great renewing process 
whereby there is made a commencement of 
holiness upon earth, and a consummation 
both of holiness and happiness in heaven — 
were these, which we all know to be the 
truths of Christianity, actually believed, the 
power of them upon our hearts would come, 
and come immediately, in the train of the 
perception of them by our understandings. 
If we remain miquickened by the utterance 
of them, it is because, in the true sense of 
the term, we remain unconvinced by them. 
The utterance of them may be heard as a 
very pleasant song — and the representation 
of them be viewed as a very lovely picture 
— but the force of a felt and present reality 
is wanting to the whole demonstration. And 
all that reason can do is to adjust the steps 
of the demonstration—and all that eloquence 
can do, is to pour forth the utterance — and 
all that conception can do is to furnish its 
forms and its colouring to the picture. And 
after learning has thus lavished on the task 
the whole copiousness of its manifold in- 
gredients, may we behold in the person of 
its proudest votary, that his Christianity to 
him is nothing better than an aerial phan- 
tom — that it is of as little operation in dis- 
posing sense, and nature, and ungodliness 
from his heart, as if it were but a nonentity, 
or a name — that to his eye a visionary dim- 
ness hangs over the whole subject matter 
of the testimony of the Bible — and still un- 
translated into the life, and the substance, 
and the reality of these things, he may join 
in the complaint of the text, as if they lay 
sealed in deepest obscurity from his con- 
templation. 

Make what you like in the way of argu- 
ment, of so many simple conceptions, if the 
conceptions themselves do not carry the 
impress of vividness and reality along with 
them — the reasoning, of which they form 
the materials, may be altogether faultless — 
and the doctrine in which it terminates, be 
held forth as altogether impregnable — yet 
will it share in all the obscurity which at- 
taches to the primary elements of its forma- 
tion — and while nature can manage the 
logical process which leads from the first 
simple ideas, to the ultimate and made-out 
conclusion, she cannot rid herself of the 
dimness in which, to her unrenewed eye, 
the former stand invested; and she must, 
therefore, leave the latter in equal dimness. 

The learned just labour as helplessly un- 
der a want of an impression of the reality 
of this whole matter, as the unlearned— and 
if this be true of those among them, who, 
with learning and nothing more, have ac- 
tually tried to decipher the meaning of 
God's communication— if this be true of 
many a priest and many a theologian, with 
whom Christianity is a science, and the 
study of the Bible is the labour and the 
business of their profession — what can we 



408 



ON THE UNIVERSALITY OF SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS. 



[SERM. 



expect of those among the learned, who, in 
the pursuits of a secular philosophy, never 
enter into contact with the Bible, either in its 
doctrine or in its language, except when it 
is obtruded on them ? Little do they know 
of our men of general literature, who have 
not observed the utter listlessness, if not 
the strong and active contempt wherewith 
many of them hear the doctrine of the book 
of God's counsel uttered in the phraseology 
of that book — how, in truth, their secret 
impression of the whole matter is, that it is 
a piece of impenetrable mysticism — how, 
in their eyes, there is a cast of obscurity 
over all the peculiarities of the Gospel— and 
if asked to give their attention thereto, they 
promptly repel the imposition under the 
feeling of a hopeless and insuperable dark- 
ness, which sits in obsolete characters over 
the entire face of the evangelical record. 
There may be bright and cheering exam- 
ples to the contrary, of men in the highest 
of our literary walks, who, under a peculiar 
teaching, have learned what they never 
learned from all the lessons of the academy. 
But apart from this peculiar influence, be 
assured that learning is of little avail. The 
sacred page may wear as hieroglyph ical an 
aspect to the lettered, as to the unlettered. 
It lies not with any of the powers or pro- 
cesses of ordinary education to dissipate 
that blindness, wherewith the god of this 
world hath blinded the mind of him who 
believes not. To make the wisdom of the 
New Testament his wisdom, and its spirit 
his spirit, and its language his best-loved 
and best-understood language, there must 
be a higher influence upon the mind, than 
what lies in human art, or in human expla- 
nation. And till this is brought to pass, the 
doctrine of the atonement, and the doctrine 
of regeneration, and the doctrine of fellow- 
ship with the Father and the Son, and the 
doctrine of a believer's progressive holiness, 
under the moral and spiritual power of the 
truth as it is in Jesus, will, as to his own 
personal experience of its meaning, remain 
so many empty sounds, or so many deep 
•and hidden mysteries — and just as effectu- 
ally, as if the book were held together by 
:an iron clasp, which he has not strength to 
unclose, may he say of the same book lying 
open and legible before him, that he cannot 
read it, because it is sealed. 

2. So much for the complaint of the 
learned; and as for the complaint of the 
unlearned, it happily, in the literal sense of 
it, is not applicable to the great majority of 
our immediate countrymen, even in the 
very humblest walks of society. They can 
put together its letters, and pronounce its 
words, and make a daily exercise, if they 
choose, of one or more of its chapters. 
They have learning enough to carry them 
thus far, but not so far as to keep them from 
joining the unlearned of my text in the 



complaint that I am not learned. They 
cannot, for example, estimate the criticism 
of many an expounder. They have not 
time to traverse the weary extent of many a 
ponderous and elaborate commentary. And 
those who have had much of Christian in- 
tercourse with the poor, must have re- 
marked the effect which their sense of this 
inferiority has upon many an imagination 
— how it is felt by not a few of them, that 
they labour under a hopeless disadvantage, 
because they want the opportunities of a 
higher and a more artificial scholarship, and 
that if they could only get nearer to their 
teachers in respect of literary attainment, 
they would be nearer that wisdom which is 
unto salvation, and that though they can 
read the book in the plainest sense of the 
term, they cannot read it with any saving 
or salutary effect, just because, in the lan- 
guage of my text, they say that they are 
not learned. And thus it is, that the man 
who has the literary accomplishments after 
which they sigh, meets with two distinct 
exhibitions to instruct and to humble him. 
The first is, when the poor look up to him 
as to one who, because lie has the scholar- 
ship of Christianity, must have the saving 
knowledge of it also, when he intimately 
feels that the luminary of science may 
shine full upon him, while not one ray to 
cheer or to enlighten, may pass into his 
heart from the luminary of the Gospel. 
The second is, when he observes among 
the poor, those who live, and who rejoice 
under the power of a revelation, to which 
himself is a stranger, those who can dis- 
cern a beauty and an evidence in the doc- 
trine of Christ, which have never beamed 
with full radiance upon his own under- 
standing — those whose feelings and whose 
experience move in a consonancy with the 
truths of the New Testament, which, in his 
own experience, he never felt — those whose 
daily path bespeaks the guidance of a wis- 
dom which never yet shone upon his own 
way, and who are blest with a peace and a 
joy in believing, which have never found 
entrance into his own desolate bosom. 

This gives us a new sight of the pecu- 
liarity which lies in the Bible — and by 
which it stands distinguished from all other 
compositions. There may remain a seal 
upon its meaning to him, who, in the ordi- 
nary sense of the term, is learned, while the 
seal may be removed, and the meaning lie 
open as the light of day to him, who in the 
same sense is unlearned. It may come with 
all the force of a felt and perceived reality 
upon the one, while the reality is not per- 
ceived, and therefore not felt by the other. 
To the man of literary accomplishment, the 
report of eternal things may reach no other 
influence than that of a sound upon his ear, 
or of a shadowy representation upon the 
eye of his fancy. To the unlettered work- 



ON THE UNIVERSALITY OF SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS. 



407 



man, it may reach an influence as substan 
tial and as practical, as the report of to-mor- 
row's work, or to-morrow's wages. The 
latter may be led to shape his actual mea- 
sures by the terms of the message of reve- 
lation. The former may lavish all the 
powers of science, and subtlety, and specu- 
lation upon the terms — and yet be as un- 
ouched in his personal habits by all the in- 
formation which it lays before him, as if 
the message were untrue. It is not learn- 
ing that has made the difference ; for the 
veil may be upon the eyes of him who is 
rich in this acquirement, while it is taken 
away from him who, in respect of scholar- 
ship, is poor, and blind, and destitute. 
There is not a single weapon in the whole 
armoury of human learning, by which the 
proudest of its votaries can force his en- 
trance into a region of spiritual manifesta- 
tion. The wise and prudent cannot, on the 
strength of any of their own peculiar re- 
sources, they cannot, with all their putting 
forth of desire and energy, attain unto those 
things which are revealed unto babes. 
There is a barrier here against which all 
the machinery of the schools may be made 
to play without effect. And it would look 
as if argument might as soon remove the 
film from the eye of him who labours un- 
der a natural blindness, as dissipate that 
thick and impalpable obscurity which lies 
in the way of all spiritual discernment. 

There are two immediate uses to which 
all this may be rendered subservient. The 
first, to rebuke the poor for an apology 
which they are sometimes heard to make, 
when convicted of blindness and ignorance 
in regard to the essential truths of Chris- 
tianity. The second, while we do not sus- 
tain the apology, to encourage them with 
the assurance, that it is just as competent 
for them to be wise unto salvation, as for 
those in the higher and more cultivated 
walks of human society. 

In pressing home the truths and over- 
tures of Christianity on the poor, we often 
meet with the very answer of the text, " I 
am not learned." This answer is not co- 
pied by them from the text. But the text, 
true as the Bible strikingly and universally 
is, in all its descriptions of Nature, copied it 
from them. It is in truth a very frequent 
conception among them, that had they the 
advantages of a higher scholarship than 
what they actually possess, they would be 
nearer the wisdom which is unto salvation. 
This ministers a kind of false security to 
their hearts, under the consciousness of a 
lack of knowledge, and that too of vital ne- 
cessity to their immortal well-being. They 
think that there is an ignorance which ne- 
cessity attaches to their condition ; and that 
this should alleviate the burden of their 
condemnation, in that they know not God. 
They spend the day in drudgery, and think, 



that on this account, they must a so spend 
it in a state of desolation, as to the whole 
light and learning of the Gospel. They 
are apt to look upon it, not as their fault, 
but as their doom, that they are strangers 
to the doctrine of peace and of righteous- 
ness ; and often regard it to be as effectual 
a plea for justifying their ignorance of 
what is sacred, as of what is profane and 
secular, that they are not learned. 

Now we refuse this apology altogether ; 
and we should like to warn you in time, 
that it will stand you in no stead, nor be of 
any avail to you in the day of reckoning. 
The word of the Lord is in your hands, and 
you can at least read it. The candle of the 
Lord may be lighted in your hearts, and 
you can at least pray for it. The Gospel 
is preached unto you as well as unto others; 
and you can at least attend to it. There 
will no incurable darkness settle upon your 
minds, unless you love the darkness. There 
will no fixed and obstinate unbelief adhere 
to your understandings, unless your deeds 
are evil. This will be your condemnation, 
if you are found to be without knowledge 
and without faith. But be assured, that all 
the aids and promises of Christianity are 
unto you as well as unto others; and if 
you grieve not the spirit by your wilful 
resistance — if you put not at a distance 
from you that Holy Ghost which is given 
to those who obey him, by your disobe- 
dience — if you despise not the grace of God 
by your daily and habitual neglect of those 
mercies — in the use of which alone, God 
undertakes to meet you with its influences 
— then be assured, that all the comforts of 
the Gospel, and all its high and heavenly 
anticipations, will descend more richly 
upon you, than upon the noble and wealthy 
of our land ; and let your work through the 
week be what it may, there is not an hour 
of it which may not be sweetened by a 
blessing from above, which may not be re- 
galed and heightened into rapture by the 
smile of a present Deity. 

It is not merely to blame you, that we 
thus speak. It is further to encourage you, 
my friends, and that, by an assurance 
which we cast abroad among you, and that, 
too, with all the confidence of one who has 
the warrant of inspiration. The knowledge 
which is life everlasting, is just as accessible 
to the poor, as it is to the rich, who have 
time to prosecute, and money to purchase 
education. Whatever the barrier may be, 
which rises as a wall of separation between 
Nature and the Gospel, it is just as impene- 
trable to the learned as it is to the unlearned 
— and however the opening through that 
barrier is made, it is made as often and 
oftener, for the purpose of sending a beam 
of spiritua 1 light into the heart of the latter, 
than into the heart of the former. The Gos- 
pel may as effectually be preached unto the 



408 



ON THE UNIVERSALITY dF SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS. 



[SERM. 



poor as unto the wealthy. Simply grant to 
the one the capacity of reading, and the op- 
portunity of hearing, and he is, at the very 
least, in as fair circumstances for becoming 
one of the children of light as the other. In 
respect to human science, there is a distinc- 
tion between them. In respect of the gos- 
pel, that distinction is utterly levelled and 
done away. Whatever the incapacity of 
Nature be for the lessons and the light of 
revelation, it is not learning, commonly so 
called, which resolves the incapacity ; and 
until that peculiar instrument be actually 
put forth which can alone resolve it, the 
book of revelation may pass and repass 
among them ; the one complaining that he 
cannot read it, because he is not learned ; 
the other equally complaining that he cannot 
read it, because it is sealed. 

II. Let us now proceed, in the second 
place, to explain a circumstance which 
stands associated in our text, with the in- 
capacity both of learned and unlearned, to 
discover the meaning of God's communica- 
tions ; and that is the spirit of a deep sleep 
which had closed the eyes of the people, 
and buried in darkness and insensibility the 
prophets, and the rulers, and the seers, as 
well as the humblest and most ignorant of 
the land. 

The connexion between the one circum- 
stance and the other is quite palpable. If 
a peasant and a philosopher, for example, 
were both literally asleep before me, and 
that so profoundly, as that no voice of mine 
could awaken them ; then they are just in 
the same circumstances, with regard to any 
demonstration which I address to their un- 
derstandings. The pov/ers and acquire- 
ments of the latter would be of no avail to 
him in such a case. They are in a state of 
dormancy, and that is just as firm an ob- 
stacle in the way of my reasoning, or of 
my information, as if they were in a state 
of non-existence. Neither would it at ail 
help the conveyance of my meaning to 
their mind, that while dead to all percep- 
tion of the argument which issued from my 
lips, or even of the sound which is its vehi- 
cle, the minds of both of them were most 
busily alive and active amongst the ima- 
gery of a dream ; the one dreaming too, 
perhaps, in the style of some high intellec- 
tual pursuit ; and the other dreaming in the 
style of some common and illiterate occu- 
pation. Such, indeed, may be the intoxica- 
tion of their fancy, that in respect of mental 
delirium, they may be said to be drunken, 
but not with wine, and to stagger, but not 
with strong drink. Still, though in the lan- 
guage of the text, I should cry out, and cry, 
it may be just as difficult to awaken them 
to a sense of what I am saying, out of a 
reverie of imagination, as it is to awaken 
them out of a simple and unconscious slum- 
ber. Nay, the very engagement of their 



fancy, with its ever-floating and aerial pic- 
tures, may have the effect of more strongly 
detaining the mind from the call which I 
vainly lift, for the purpose of arousing them. 
And as the visionary scenes, whether of 
bliss, or of anxiety, or of sadness, or of eager 
pursuit, or of bright or of fearful anticipation, 
pass successively before them, the reality 
of my waking address may fall unheeded 
upon each ; and though the one be learned, 
and the other be unlearned, it, in respect of 
their listening to me, and their understand- 
ing of me, totally annuls this difference be- 
tween them, that their eyes are firmly 
closed, and a deep sleep is poured upon 
them both. 

Such, it is possible to conceive, may be 
the profoundness of this lethargy, as to be 
unmoved by the most loud and terrifying 
intimations. I may lift this note of alarm, 
that a fire has broken out in the premises, 
and is on the eve of bursting into their 
apartment — and yet such may be the death- 
like sleep of both, that both may lie motion- 
less and unconscious on the very confines 
of their approaching dissolution. Or, what 
would be more affecting still, both, in the 
airy chase of their own imagination, may 
be fully engrossed among the pictures and 
the agitations of a dream, and be inwardly 
laughing, or crying, or striving, or pursuing, 
or rejoicing ; and that, while the flame is at 
their door, which in a few minutes is to 
seize upon and to destroy them. 

When a man is asleep and dreaming, he 
is alive only to his own fancies, and dead to 
all the realities of the visible worl(l around 
him. Awaken him, and he becomes intel- 
ligent and alive to these realities, but there 
may still be other realities to which he is 
not yet awakened. There may remain a 
torpor upon his faculties, in virtue of which, 
he may have as little sense and as little 
feeling of certain near and impending reali- 
ties, as the man who is wrapt in the insensi- 
bility of his midnight repose has of earth 
and of all its concerns. The report of an 
angry God, and a coming eternity, may as 
little disturb him as the report of a confla- 
gration in the premises, disturbs the sleep- 
ing inmate before he is awakened. It is not 
learned argument which works out, in the 
one case, the escape of him who is in dan- 
ger. Could we only awaken him, we would 
need no argument. Neither is it learned 
argument which works out, in the other 
case, the escape of him who is in danger. It 
is the cry of, "Awake, O sinner," lifted with 
power enough to arouse him out of his spi- 
ritual lethargies. It is the shaking of the 
soul out of those heavy slumbers, under 
which it is weighed down to deep and strong 
insensibility, about the awful urgencies of 
guilt, and danger, and death, by which it 
is encompassed. When the house which 
covers a sleeping peasant and a sleeping 



VI.] 



ON THE UNIVERSALITY 0 



F SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS. 



409 



philosopher, is in flames, it is not by a de- 
monstration of philosophy that the one is 
awakened, and the other is left to perish in 
the ruin ; and when both are awakened by 
the same call, it is not at the bidding of 
philosophy that the one hastens his escape, 
while the other lingers in the midst of de- 
struction. They need only to be recovered 
to the use of senses which were alike sus- 
pended with both, that both may flee with 
equal promptitude from the besetting ca- 
lamity. And the same of the coming 
wrath — the same of the consuming fire, 
that is now ready to burst on the head of 
the guilty, from the storehouse of treasured 
vengeance — the same of all the surround- 
ing realities of God, and judgment, and 
eternity, which lie on every side of us. It 
is not philosophy which awakes him who 
has it, to a sense of these things. Neither 
is it the want of philosophy which keeps 
him who has it not, fast asleep among the 
vanities and day-dreams of a passing world. 
All the powers of philosophy, operating 
upon all the materials of philosophy, will 
never dissolve the infatuation of him w r ho 
is not yet aroused either from the slumbers, 
or from the visions of carnality. To effect 
this, there must be either the bestow^ment 
of a new sense, or the restoration of an old 
sense, which has been extinguished. And 
be he learned or be he unlearned, such an 
awakening as this will tell alike upon both. 
The simple view of certain simple realities, 
to which the vast majority of the world are 
asleep, will put each of them into motion. 
And when his eyes are once opened by the 
force of such a demonstration, will he either 
flee from the coming wrath, or flee for re- 
fuge to the hope set before him in the Gos- 
pel, without the bidding or the voice of phi- 
losophy to speed his w r ay. 

And that the vast majority of the world 
are, in truth, asleep to all those realities 
which constitute the great materials of re- 
ligion, may be abundantly proved by ex- 
perience — and we cannot proceed far in the 
details of such a proof, without leading many 
an individual hearer to carry the topic home 
to his own experience. For this purpose, 
let us just compare the kind of feeling and 
perception which we have about an event 
that may happen on this side of time, with 
the feeling and perception about an event, 
as nearly similar as possible, that will hap- 
pen on the other side of time, and try how 
much it is that we are awake as to the for- 
mer, and asleep as to the latter. Should we 
assuredly know, that in a few years we are 
I to be translated into a splendid affluence, 
or sunk into the most abject and deplorable 
poverty, how keen would be our anticipa- 
tion, whether of hope or of fear: and why ? 
Because we are awake unto these things. 
We do assuredly know, that in a few years 
we pass that mysterious portal, which leads 
3 F 



to bliss, or pain, or annihilation — and these 
are certainties which we do not keenly an- 
ticipate, and just because we are asleep unto 
these things. Should we behold a neigh- 
bour on the same path of enterprise with 
ourselves, suddenly arrested by the hand of 
bankruptcy, and be further told to our con- 
viction, that the same fatality is sure to en- 
counter all who are treading that path, we 
would retrace, or move aside, or do our ut- 
most to evade it— because all awake to the 
disgrace and wretchedness of bankruptcy. 
We every month behold such a neighbour 
arrested by the hand of death — nor can we 
escape the conviction, that sooner or later, 
he will cast his unfailing weapon at our- 
selves ; and yet no one practical movement 
follows the conviction, because w r e are asleep 
to a sense of the mighty ruin wnich awaits 
us from unsparing and universal mortality. 
Should the house in which you live, be en- 
tered with violence by the executioners of a 
tyrant's will, and a brother, or a child, be 
hurried away to a perpetual dungeon — if 
made to know^, that it was because such a 
doom had been laid upon the w^hole family, 
and that sooner or later, its infliction was 
most surely in reserve for every successive 
member of it — would not you be looking 
out in constant terror, and live in constant 
insecurity, and prove how feelingly you 
were awake to a sense of the sufferings of 
an earthly imprisonment ? But though death 
break in upon our dwelling, and lay a ruth- 
less grasp on the dearest of its inmates, and 
leave the assurance behind him, that he will 
not cease his inroads on this devoted house- 
hold, till he has swept it utterly away — all 
w r e know of the loneliness of the church- 
yard, and all we read of the unseen horrors 
of that eternity to which the impenitent and 
the unbeliever are carried by the ministers 
of the wrath of God, fail to disturb us out 
of the habit of living here, as if here we 
were to live for ever; and that, just because 
while aw r ake to all the reality which lieth 
on this side of the grave, we are asleep to 
the consideration both of the grave itself, 
and of all the reality which lies beyond it. 

Now, the question comes to be, how is 
this sleep dissipated % Not, we affirm, and 
all experience will go along with us, not by 
the pow T er of natural argument — not by the 
demonstrations of human learning, for these 
are just as powerless with him who under- 
stands them, as with him who makes his 
w T ant of learning the pretence for putting 
them away — not by putting the old mate- 
rials of thought into a new arrangement — 
not by setting such things as the eye of 
Nature can see, or its ear can hear, or its 
heart can conceive, into a new light — not by 
working in the varied processes of combi- 
nation, and abstraction, and reasoning, with 
such simple and elementary ideas as the 
mind of man can apprehend. The feelings 



410 



ON THE UNIVERSALITY OF SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS. 



[SERM. 



and the suggestions of all our old senses 
put together, will not make out for us a 
practical impression of the matters of faith — 
and there must be a transition as great as 
that by which man awakens out of the sleep 
of nature, and so comes to see the realities 
of Nature which are around him— there 
must be a something equivalent to the com- 
munication of a new sense, ere a reality 
comes to be seen in those eternal things, 
where no reality was felt or seen, however 
much it may have been acknowledged be- 
fore. 

It is true, that along the course of our or- 
dinary existence, we are awake to the con- 
cerns of our ordinary existence. But this 
is not a wakefulness which goes to disturb 
the profoundness of our insensibility, as to 
the concerns of a higher existence. We are 
in one sense awake, but in another most 
entirely, and, to all human appearance, 
most hopelessly and irrecoverably asleep. 
We are just in the same condition with a 
man who is dreaming^ and so moves for the 
time in a pictured world of his own. He 
is not steeped in a more death-like indiffer- 
ence to the actual and the peopled world 
around him, than the man who is busy for 
the short and fleeting pilgrimage of his 
days upon earth, among its treacherous de- 
lusions, is shut in all his sensibilities, and 
all his thoughts, against the certainties of 
an immortal state. And the transition is 
not greater from the sleeping fancies of the 
night to the waking certainties of our daily 
business, than is the transition from the day- 
dreams of a passing world, to those sub- 
stantial considerations, which wield a pre- 
siding authority over the conduct of him 
who walketh not by the sight of that which 
is around him, but by the faith of the unseen 
things that are above him, and before him. 
To be thus translated in the habit of our 
mind, is beyond the power of the most busy 
and intense of its natural exercises. It 
needs the power of a new and simple mani- 
festation ; and as surely as the dreamer on 
his bed behooves to be awakened, ere he be 
restored to a just sense of his earthly con- 
dition, and of his earthly circumstances, so 
surely must there be a distinct awakening 
made to pass on the dark, and torpid, and 
overborne faculties of us all, ere the matters 
of faith come to be clothed to our eye in the 
characters of certainty, and we be made 
truly to apprehend the bearing in which 
we stand to the God who is now looking 
over us, to the eternity which is now ready 
to absorb us. 

This awakening calls for a peculiar and 
a preternatural application . We say pre- 
ternatural, for such is the obstinacy of this 
sleep of nature, that no power within the 
compass of nature can put an end to it. It 
withstands all the demonstrations of arith- 
metic. Time moves on without disturbing 



it. The last messenger lifts many a note of 
preparation, but so deep is the lethargy of 
our text, that he is not heard. Every year 
do his approaching footsteps become more 
distinct and more audible ; yet eVery year 
rivets the affections of the votary of sense 
more tenaciously than before, to the scene 
that is around him. One would think, that 
the fall of so many acquaintances on every 
side of him, might at length have reached 
an awakening conviction into his heart. 
One would think, that standing alone, and in 
mournful survey amid the wreck of former 
associations, the spell might have been alrea- 
dy broken, which so fastens him to a perish- 
able world. O, why were the tears he shed 
over his children's grave, not followed up by 
the deliverance of his soul from this sore 
infatuation'? Why, as he hung over the 
dying bed of her with whom he had so oft 
taken counsel about the plans and the in- 
terests of life, did he not catch a glimpse 
of this world's vanity, and did not the light 
of truth break in upon his heart from the 
solemn and apprehended realities beyond 
it ? But no. The enchantment, it would 
appear, is not so easily dissolved. The deep 
sleep which the Bible speaks of, is not so 
easily broken. The conscious infirmities of 
age cannot do it. The frequent and touch- 
ing specimens of mortality around us, can- 
not do it. The rude entrance of death into 
Our own houses, and the breaking up of our 
own families, cannot do it. The melting 
of our old society away from us, and the 
constant succession of new faces, and new 
families, in their place, cannot do it. The 
tolling of the funeral bell, which has rung 
so many of our companions across the con- 
fines of eternity, and in a few little years, 
will perform the same office for us, cannot 
do it. It often happens, in the visions of 
the night, that some fancied spectacle of 
terror, or shriek of alarm, have frightened 
us out of our sleep, and our dream together. 
But the sleep of worldliness stands its 
ground against all this. We hear the moan- 
ings of many a death-bed— and we witness 
its looks of imploring anguish— and we 
watch the decay of life, as it glimmers on- 
wards to its final extinction — and we hear 
the last breath — and we pause in the solemn 
stillness that follows it, till it is broken in 
upon by the bursting agony of the weeping 
attendants— and in one day more, we re- 
visit the chamber of him, who, in white and 
shrouded stateliness, lies the effigy of what 
he was — and we lift the border that is upon 
the dead man's countenance, and there we ' 
gaze on that brow so cold, and those eyes 
so motionless — and, in two days more, we • 
follow him to his sepulchre, and mingled 
with the earth, among which he is to be 
laid, we behold the skulls and the skeletons 
of those who have gone before him— and it 
is the distinct understanding of nature, that 



VII.] ON THE NEW HE A.VENS 

soon shall have every one of us to go 
through the same process of dying, and add 
our mouldering bodies to the mass of cor- 
ruption that we have been contemplating. 
But mark the derangement of nature, and 
how soon again it falls to sleep among the 
delusions of a world, of the vanity of which 
it has recently got so striking a demonstra- 
tion. Look onwards but one single day- 
more, and you behold every trace* of this 
loud and warning voice dissipated to no- 
thing. The man seemed, as if he had been 
actually awakened ; but it was only the 
start and the stupid glare of a moment, after 
which he has lain him down again among 
the visions and the slumbers of a soul that 
is spiritually dead. He has not lost all 
sensibility any more than the man that is 
in a midnight trance, who is busied with 
the imaginations of a dream. But he has 
gone back again to the sensibilities of a 
world which he is so speedily to abandon ; 
and in these he has sunk all the sensibili- 
ties of that everlasting world, on the con- 
fines of which he was treading but yester- 
day. All is forgotten amid the bargains, 



AND THE NEW EARTH. 411 

and the adventures, and the bustle, and the 
expectation of the scene that is immediately 
around him. Eternity is again shut out ; 
and amid the dreaming illusions of a fleet- 
ing and fantastic day, does he cradle his 
infatuated soul into an utter unconcern 
about its coming torments, or its coming 
triumphs. 

Yes ! my brethren, we have heard the 
man of serious religion denounced as a 
visionary. But if that be a vision which is 
a short-lived deceit — and that be a sober 
reality which survives the fluctuations both 
of time and of fancy — tell us if such a use 
of the term be not an utter misapplication ; 
and whether, with ail the justice, as well as 
with all the severity of truth, it may not be 
retorted upon the head of him, who, though 
prized for the sagacity of a firm, secular, 
and much exercised understanding, and 
honoured in the market-place for his ex- 
perience on the walks and ways of this 
world's business, has not so much as en- 
tered upon the beginning of wisdom, but is 
toiling away all his skill and all his energy 
on the frivolities of an idiot's dream. 



SERMON VII. 
On the new Heavens and the new Earth. 

"Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth 

righteousness." — 2 Peter iii. 13. 



There is a limit to the revelations of the 
Bible about futurity, and it were a mental 
or spiritual trespass to go beyond it. The 
reserve which it maintains in its informa- 
tions, we also ought to maintain in our in- 
quiries — satisfied to know little on every 
subject, where it has communicated little, 
and feeling our way into regions which are 
at present unseen, no further than the light 
of Scripture will carry us. 

But while we attempt not to be "wise 
above that which is written," we should at- 
tempt, and that most studiously, to be wise 
up to that which is written. The disclo- 
sures are very few and very partial, which 
are given to us of that bright and beautiful 
economy, which is to survive the ruins of 
our present one. But still there are such 
disclosures — and on the principle of the 
things that are revealed belonging unto us, 
we have a right to walk up and down, for 
the purpose of observation, over the whole 
actual extent of them. 

What is made known of the details of 
immortality, is but small in the amount, nor 
are we furnished with the materials of any 
thing like a graphical or picturesque exhibi- 
tion of its abodes of blessedness. But still 



somewhat is made known, and which, too, 
may be addressed to a higher principle than 
curiosity, being like every other Scripture, 
"profitable both for doctrine and for instruc- 
tion in righteousness." 

In the text before us, there are two lead- 
ing points of information, which we should 
like successively to remark upon. The first 
is, that in the new economy which is to be 
reared for the accommodation of the blessed, 
there will be materialism, not merely new 
heavens, but also a new earth. The second 
is, that, as distinguished from the present, 
which is an abode of rebellion, it will be an 
abode of righteousness. 

I. We know historically that earth, that 
a solid material earth, may form the dwell- 
ing of sinless creatures, in full converse and 
friendship with the Being who made them — 
that, instead of a place of exile for outcasts, 
it may have a broad avenue of communica- 
tion with the spiritual world, for the descent 
of ethereal beings from on high — that, like 
the member of an extended family, it may 
share in the regard and attention of the 
other members, and along with them be glad- 
dened by the presence of him who is the 
Father of them all. To inquire how this 



412 



ON THE NEW HEAVENS AND THE NEW EARTH." 



[SERM. 



can be, were to attempt a wisdom beyond 
Scripture : but to assert that this has been, 
and therefore may be, is to keep most strictly 
and modestly within the limits of the record. 
For, we there read, that God framed an ap- 
paratus of materialism, which, on his own 
surveying, he pronounced to be all very 
good, and the leading features of which may 
still be recognised among the things and the 
substances that are around us — and that he 
created man with the bodily organs and 
senses which we now wear — and placed 
him under the very canopy that is over our 
heads — and spread around him a scenery, 
perhaps lovelier in its tints, and more smiling 
and serene in the whole aspect of it, but cer- 
tainly made up, in the main, of the same 
objects that still compose the prospect of 
our visible contemplations — and there, work- 
ing with his hands in a garden, and with 
trees on every side of him, and even with 
animals sporting at his feet, was this inha- 
bitant of earth, in the midst of all those 
earthly and familiar accompaniments, in 
full possession of the best immunities of a 
citizen of heaven---sharing in the delight of 
angels, and while he gazed on the very 
beauties which we ourselves gaze upon, re- 
joicing in them most as the tokens of a pre- 
sent and presiding Deity. It were venturing 
on the region of conjecture to affirm, whe- 
ther, if Adam had not fallen, the earth that 
we now tread upon, would have been the 
everlasting abode of him and his posterity. 
But certain it is, that man, at the first, had 
for his place this world, and, at the same 
time, for his privilege, an unclouded fel- 
lowship with God, and, for his prospect, an 
immortality, which death was neither to 
intercept nor put an end to. He was ter- 
restrial in respect of condition, and yet 
celestial in respect both of character and 
enjoyment. His eye looked outwardly on 
a landscape of earth, while his heart breath- 
ed upwardly in the love of heaven. And 
though he trode the solid platform of our 
world, and was compassed about with its 
horizon — still was he within the circle of 
God's favoured creation, and took his place 
among the freemen and the denizens of the 
great spiritual commonwealth. 

This may serve to rectify an imagina- 
tion of which we think that all must be 
conscious — as if the grossness of material- 
ism was only for those who had degenerated 
into the grossness of sin ; and that, when a 
spiritualizing process had purged away all 
our corruption, then, by the stepping-stones 
of a death and a resurrection, we should 
be borne away to some ethereal region, 
where sense, and body, and all in the shape 
either of audible sound, or of tangible sub- 
stance, were unknown. And hence that 
strangeness of impression which is felt by 
you, should the supposition be offered, that 
in the place of eternal blessedness there 



will be ground to walk upon ; or scenes of 
luxuriance to delight the corporeal senses; 
or the kindly intercourse of friends talking 
familiarly, and by articulate converse to- 
gether ; or, in short, any thing that has the 
least resemblance to a local territory, filled 
with various accommodations, and peopled 
over its whole extent by creatures formed 
like ourselves — having bodies such as we 
now wear, and faculties of perception, and 
thought, and mutual communication, such as 
we now exercise. The common imagination 
that we have of paradise on the other side 
of death, is, that of a lofty aerial region, 
where the inmates float in ether, or are 
mysteriously suspended upon nothing — 
where all the warm and sensible accompa- 
niments which give such an expression of 
strength^ and life, and colouring, to our 
present habitation, are attenuated into a 
sort of spiritual element, that is meagre, 
and imperceptible, and utterly uninviting 
to the eye of mortals here below — where 
every vestige of materialism is done away, 
and nothing left but certain unearthly 
scenes that have no power of allurement, 
and certain unearthly ecstacies, with which 
it is felt impossible to sympathize. The 
holders of this imagination forget all the 
while, that really there is no essential con- 
nection between materialism and sin — that 
the world which we now inhabit, had all 
the amplitude and solidity of its present 
materialism, before sin entered into it — 
that God so far, on that account, from look- 
ing slightly upon it, after it had received 
the last touch of his creating hand, review- 
ed the earth, and the waters, and the firma- 
ment, and all the green herbage, with, the 
living creatures, and the man whom he had 
raised in dominion over them, and he saw 
every thing that he had made, and behold 
it was all very good. They forget that on 
the birth of materialism, when it stood out 
in the freshness of those glories which the 
great Architect of Nature had impressed 
upon it, that then the " morning stars sang 
together, and all the sons of God shouted 
for joy." They forget the appeals that are 
made every where in the Bible to this ma- 
terial workmanship — and how, from the 
face of these visible heavens, and the garni- 
ture of this earth that we tread upon, the 
greatness and the goodness of God are re- 
flected on the view of his worshippers. No, 
my brethren, the object of the administra- 
tion we sit under, is to extirpate sin, but it 
is not to sweep away materialism. By the 
convulsions of the last day, it may be 
shaken, and broken down from its present 
arrangements, and thrown into such fitful 
agitations, as that the whole of its existing 
frame- work shall fall to pieces, and by a heat 
so fervent as to melt its most solid elements, 
may it be utterly dissolved. And thus may 
the earth again become without form, and 



VII.] 



ON THE NEW HEAVENS 



AND THE NEW EARTH. 



413 



void, but without one particle of its sub- 
stance going into annihilation. Out of the 
ruins of this second chaos, may another 
heaven and another earth be made to arise ; 
and a new materialism, with other aspects 
of magnificence and beauty, emerge from 
the wreck of this mighty transformation ; 
and the world be peopled as before, with 
the varieties of material loveliness, and 
space be again lighted up into a firmament 
of material splendour. 

Were our place of everlasting blessed- 
ness so purely spiritual as it is commonly 
imagined, then the soul of man, after, at 
death, having quitted his body, would quit 
it conclusively. That mass of* materialism 
with which it is associated upon earth, and 
which many regard as a load and an in- 
cumbrance, would have leave to putrefy in 
the grave without being revisited by super- 
natural power, or raised again out of the 
inanimate dust into which it had resolved. 
If the body be indeed a clog _and a con- 
finement to the spirit, instead of its commo- 
dious tenement, then would the spirit feel 
lightened by the departure it had made, 
and expatiate in all the buoyancy of its 
emancipated powers, over a scene of en- 
largement. And this is, doubtless, the pre- 
vailing imagination. But why, then, after 
having made its escape from such a thral- 
dom, should it ever recur to the prison-house 
of its old materialism, if a prison-house it 
really be. Why should the disengaged 
spirit again be fastened to the drag of that 
grosser and heavier substance, which many 
think has only the effect of weighing down 
its activity, and infusing into the pure 
element of mind an ingredient which serves 
to cloud and to enfeeble it. In other words, 
what is the use of a day of resurrection, 
if the union wmich then takes place is to 
deaden, or to reduce all those energies that 
are commonly ascribed to the living prin- 
ciple, in a state of separation ? But, as a 
proof of some metaphysical delusion upon 
this subject, the product, perhaps, of a 
wrong though fashionable philosophy, it 
would appear, that to embody the spirit is 
not the stepping-stone to its degradation, 
but to its preferment. The last day will be 
a day of triumph to the righteous — because 
the day of the re-entrance of the spirit to 
its much-loved abode, where its faculties, 
so far from being shut up into captivity, 
will find their free and kindred develope- 
ment in such material organs as are suited 
to them. The fact of the resurrection 
proves, that, with man at least, the state of 
a disembodied spirit, is a state of unnatural 
violence — and that the resurrection of his 
body is an essential step to the highest per- 
fection of which he is susceptible. And it 
is indeed an homage to that materialism, 
which many are for expunging from the 
future state of the universe altogether — 



that ere the immaterial soul of man has 
reached the ultimate glory and blessedness 
which are designed for it, it must return 
and knock at that very grave where lie the 
mouldered remains of the body which it 
wore — and there inquisition must be made 
for the flesh, and the sinews, and the bones, 
which the power of corruption has perhaps 
for centuries before, assimilated to the earth 
that is around them — and there, the minute 
atoms must be re-assembled into a structure 
that bears upon it the form and the linea- 
ments, and the general aspect of a man — 
and the soul passes into this material 
frame-work, which is hereafter to be its 
lodging-place for ever — and that, not as its 
prison, but as its pleasant and befitting ha- 
bitation — not to be trammelled, as some 
would have it, in a hold of materialism, 
but to be therein equipped for the services 
of eternity — to walk embodied among the 
bowers of our second paradise — to stand 
embodied in the presence of our God. 

There will, it is true, be a change of 
personal constitution between a good man 
before his death, and a good man after his 
resurrection — not, however, that he will be 
set free from his body, but that he will be 
set free from the corrupt principle that 
is in his body — not the materialism by 
which he is now surrounded will be done 
away, but that the taint of evil by which 
this materialism is now pervaded, will be 
done away. Could this be effected without 
dying, then death would be no longer an 
essential stepping-stone to paradise. But 
it would appear of the moral virus which 
has been transmitted downwards from 
Adam, and is now spread abroad over the 
whole human family— it would appear, 
that to get rid of this, the old fabric must 
be taken down, and reared anew ; and that, 
not of other materials, but of its own ma- 
terials, only delivered of all impurity, as if 
by a refining process in the sepulchre. It 
is thus, that what is " sown in weakness, 
is raised in power"— and for this purpose, 
it is not necessary to get quit of material- 
ism, but to get quit of sin, and to purge 
materialism of its malady. It is thus that 
the dead shall come forth incorruptible — 
and those, we are told, who are alive at 
this great catastrophe, shall suddenly and 
mysteriously be changed. While we* are 
compassed about with these vile bodies, as 
the Apostle emphatically terms them, evil 
is present, and it is well, if through the 
working of the Spirit of grace, evil does not 
prevail. To keep this besetting enemy in 
check, is the task and the trial of our Chris- 
tianity on earth — and it is the detaching of 
this poisonous ingredient which constitutes 
that for which the believer is represented 
as groaning earnestly, even the redemption 
of the body that he now wears, and which 
will then be transformed into the likeness 



414 



ON THE NEW HEAVENS AND THE NEW EARTH. 



[SERM. 



of Christ's glorified body. And this will 
be his heaven, that he will serve God with- 
out a struggle, and in a full gale of spiritual 
delight — because with the full concurrence 
of all the feelings and all the faculties of 
his regenerated nature. Before death, sin 
is only repressed — after the resurrection, 
all sin will be exterminated. Here he has 
to maintain the combat, with a tendency to 
evil still lodging in his heart, and working 
a perverse movement among his inclina- 
tions; but after his warfare in this world 
is accomplished, he will no longer be so 
thwarted — and he will set him down in an- 
other world, with the repose and the tri- 
umph of victory for his everlasting reward. 
The great constitutional plague of his na- 
ture will no longer trouble him ; and there 
will be the charm of a genial affinity be- 
tween the purity of his heart, and the 
purity of the element he breathes in. Still 
it will not be the purity of spirit escaped 
from materialism, but of spirit translated 
into a materialism that has been clarified 
of evil. It will not be the purity of souls 
unclothed as at death, but the purity of 
souls that have again been clothed upon at 
the resurrection. 

But the highest homage that we know of 
to materialism, is that which God, manifest 
in the flesh, has rendered to it. That He, 
the Divinity, should have wrapt his unfa- 
thomable essence in one of its coverings, 
and expatiated amongst us in the palpable 
form and structure of a man ; and that he 
should have chosen such a tenement, not as 
a temporary abode, but should have borne 
it with him to the place which he now oc- 
cupies, and where he is now employed in 
preparing the mansions of his followers; 
that he should have entered within the vail, 
and be now seated at the right hand of the 
Father, with the very body which was 
marked by the nails upon his cross, and 
wherewith he ate and drank after his resur- 
rection — that he who repelled the imagina- 
tion of his disciples, as if they had seen a 
spirit, by bidding them handle him and see, 
and subjecting to their familiar touch the 
flesh and the bones that encompassed him ; 
that he should now be throned in universal 
supremacy, and wielding the whole power of 
heaven and earth, have every knee to bow 
at his name, and every tongue to confess, 
and yet all to the glory of God the Father — 
that humanity, that substantial and embo- 
died humanity, should thus be exalted, and 
a voice of adoration from every creature, 
be lifted up to the Lamb for ever and ever — 
does this look like the abolition of materi- 
alism, after the present system of it is de- 
stroyed ; or does it not rather prove, that 
transplanted into another system, it will be 
preferred to celestial honours, and prolonged 
in immortality throughout all ages ? 

It has been our careful endeavour, in all 



that we have said, to keep within the limits of 
the record, and to offer no other remarks than 
those which may fitly be suggested by the 
circumstance, that a new earth is to be cre- 
ated, as well as a new heavens for the future 
accommodation of the righteous. We have 
no desire to push the speculation beyond 
what is written, but it were, at the same 
time, well, that in all our representations of 
the immortal state, there was just the same 
force of colouring, and the same vivacity 
of scenic exhibition that there is in the New 
Testament. The imagination of a total 
and diametric opposition between the re- 
gion of sense and the region of spirituality, 
certainly tends to abate the interest with 
which we might otherwise look to the per- 
spective that is on the other side of the 
grave ; and to deaden all those sympathies 
that we else might have with the joys and 
the exercises of the blest in paradise. To 
rectify this, it is not necessary to enter on 
the particularities of heaven — a topic on 
which the Bible is certainly most sparing 
and reserved in its communications. But 
a great step is gained simply by dissolving 
the alliance that exists in the minds of many 
between the two ideas of sin and material- 
ism ; or proving, that when once sin is done 
away, it consists with all we know of God's 
administration, that materialism shall be 
perpetuated in the full bloom and vigour 
of immortality. It altogether holds out a 
warmer and more alluring picture of the 
elysium that awaits us, when told, that there, 
will be beauty to delight the eye ; and music 
to regale the ear; and the comfort that 
springs from all the charities of intercourse 
between man and man, holding converse 
as they do on earth, and gladdening each 
other with the benignant smiles that play 
on the human countenance, or the accents 
of kindness that fall in soft and soothing 
melody from the human voice. There is 
much of the innocent, and much of the in- 
spiring, and much to affect and elevate the 
heart, in the scenes and the contemplations 
of materialism — and we do hail the infor- 
mation of our text, that after the dissolution 
of its present frame-work, it will again be 
varied and decked out anew in all the graces 
of its unfading verdure, and of its un- 
bounded variety— that in addition to our di- 
rect and personal view of the Deity, when 
he comes down to tabernacle with men, we 
shall also have the reflection of him in a 
lovely mirror of his own workmanship; 
and that instead of being transported to 
some abode of dimness and of mystery, so 
remote from human experience, as to be be- 
yond all comprehension, we shall walk for 
ever in a land replenished with those sen- 
sible delights, and those sensible glories, 
which, we doubt not, will lie most profusely 
scattered over the " new heavens and the 
new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." 



VII.] 



ON THE NEW HEAVENS AND THE NEW EARTH. 



415 



II. But though a paradise of sense, it will 
not be a paradise of sensuality. Though not 
so unlike the present world as many appre- 
hend it, there will be one point of total dis- 
similarity betwixt them. It is not the entire 
substitution of spirit for matter, that will 
distinguish the future economy from the 
present. But it will be the entire substitu- 
tion of righteousness for sin. It is this which 
signalizes the Christian from the Mahome- 
tan paradise — not that sense, and substance, 
and splendid imagery, and the glories of a 
visible creation seen with bodily eyes are 
excluded from it, but that all which is vile 
in principle, or voluptuous in impurity, will 
be utterly excluded from it. There will be 
a firm earth, as we have at present, and a 
heaven stretched over it, as we have at pre- 
sent ; and it is not by the absence of these, 
but by the absence of sin, that the abodes of 
immortality will be characterized. There 
will both be heavens and earth, it would 
appear, in the next great administration — 
and with this speciality to mark it from 
the present one, that it will be a heavens 
and earth, "wherein dwelleth righteous- 
ness." 

Now, though the first topic of information 
that we educed from the text, may be re- 
garded as not very practical, yet the second 
topic on which I now insist, is most emi- 
nently so. Were it the great characteristic 
of that spirituality which is to obtain in a 
future heaven, that it was a spirituality of 
essence, then occupying and pervading the 
place from which materialism has been 
swept away, we could not, by any possible 
method, approximate the condition we are 
in at present to the condition we are to 
hold everlastingly. We cannot etherealize 
the matter that is around us — neither can we 
attenuate our own bodies, nor bring down 
the slightest degree of such a heaven to the 
earth that we now inhabit. But when we 
are told that materialism is to be kept up, 
and that the spirituality of our future state 
lies not in the kind of substance which is to 
compose its frame-work, but in the charac- 
ter of those who people it — this puts, if not 
the fulness of heaven, at least a foretaste of 
heaven, within our reach. We have not to 
strain at a thing so impracticable, as that 
of diluting the material economy which is 
without us; we have only to reform the 
moral economy that is within us. We are 
now walking on a terrestrial surface, not 
more compact, perhaps, than the one we 
shall hereafter walk upon; and are now 
wearing terrestrial bodies, not firmer and 
more solid, perhaps, than those we shall 
hereafter wear. It is not by working any 
change upon them that we could realize, to 
an extent, our future heaven. And this is 
simply done by opening the door of our 
heart for the influx of heaven's affections — 
by bringing the whole man, as made up of 



soul, and spirit, and body, under the presid- 
ing authority of heaven's principles. 

This will make plain to you how it is that 
it could be said in the New Testament, that 
the "kingdom of heaven was at hand" — 
and how, in that book, its place is marked 
out, not by locally pointing to any quarter, 
and saying, Lo here, or lo there, but by the 
simple affirmation that the kingdom of hea- 
ven is within you — and how, in defining 
what it was that constituted the kingdom 
of heaven, there is an enumeration, not of 
such circumstances as make up an outward 
condition, but of such feelings and qualities 
as make up a character, even righteousness, 
and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost — and 
how the ushering in of the new dispensa- 
tion is held equivalent to the introduction 
of this kingdom into the world — all making 
it evident, that if the purity and the princi- 
ples of heaven begin to take effect upon our 
heart, what is essentially heaven begins with 
us, even in this world ; that instead of as- 
cending to some upper region, for the pur- 
pose of entering it, it may descend upon us, 
and make an actual entrance of itself into 
our bosoms ; and that so far, therefore, from 
that remote and inaccessible thing which 
many do regard it, it may, through the in- 
fluence of the word which is nigh unto you, 
and of the Spirit that is given to prayer, be 
lighted up in the inner man of an individual 
upon earth, whose person may even here, 
exemplify its graces, and whose soul may 
even here realize a measure of its enjoyments. 

And hence one great purpose of the in- 
carnation of our Saviour. He came down 
amongst us in the full perfection of heaven's 
character, and has made us see, that it is a 
character which may be embodied. All its 
virtues were, in his case, infused into a cor- 
poreal frame-work, and the substance of 
these lower regions was taken into intimate 
and abiding association with the spirit of 
the higher. The ingredient which is hea- 
venly, admits of being united with the in- 
gredient which is earthly — so that we, who, 
by nature are of the earth, and earthly, 
could we catch of that pure and celestial 
element which made the man Christ Jesus 
to differ from all other men, then might we 
too be formed into that character by which 
it is that the members of the family above 
differ from the outcast family beneath. 
Now, it is expressly said of him, that he is 
set before us as an example ; and we are re- 
quired to look to that living exhibition of 
him, where all the graces of the upper 
sanctuary are beheld as in a picture; and 
instead of an abstract, we have in his his- 
tory a familiar representation of such worth, 
and piety, and excellence, as could they 
only be stamped upon our own persons, and 
borne along with us to the place where he 
now dwelleth— instead of being shunned as 
aliens, we should be welcomed and recog- 



416 



ON THE NEW HEAVENS AND THE NEW EARTH. 



[SERM. 



nised as seemly companions for the inmates 
of that place of holiness. And, in truth, the 
great work of Christ's disciples upon earth, 
is a constant and busy process of assimila- 
tion to their Master who is in heaven. And 
we live under a special economy, that has 
been set up for the express purpose of help- 
ing it forward. It is for this, in particular, 
that the Spirit is provided. We are changed 
into the image of the Lord, even by the 
Spirit of the Lord. Nursed out of this ful- 
ness, we grow up unto the stature of perfect 
men in Christ Jesus — and instead of heaven 
being a remote and mysterious unknown, 
heaven*is brought near to us by the simple 
expedient of inspiring us where we now 
stand, with its love, and its purity, and its 
sacredness. We learn from Christ, that the 
heavenly graces are all of them compatible 
with the wear of an earthly body, and the 
circumstances of an earthly habitation. It 
is not said in how many of its features the 
new earth will differ from, or be like unto 
the present one — but we, by turning from 
our iniquities unto Christ, push forward the 
resemblance of the one to the other, in the 
only feature that is specified, even that 
" therein dwelleth righteousness." 

And had we only the character of hea- 
ven, we should not be long of feeling what 
that is which essentially makes the comfort 
of heaven. " Thou lovest righteousness, and 
hatest iniquity; therefore, God, thy God, 
hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness, 
above thy fellows." Let us but love the 
righteousness which he loves, and hate the 
iniquity which he hateth, and this, of itself, 
would so soften and attune the mechanism 
of our moral nature, that in all the move- 
ments of it, there should be joy. It is not 
sufficiently adverted to, that the happiness 
of heaven lies simply and essentially in the 
well-going machinery of a well-conditioned 
soul — and that according to its measure, it 
is the same in kind with the happiness of 
God, who liveth for ever in bliss ineffable, 
because he is unchangeable in being good, 
and upright, and holy. There may be audi- 
ble music in heaven, but its chief delight 
will be in the music of well-poised affections, 
and of principles in full and consenting har- 
mony with the laws of eternal rectitude. 
There may be visions of loveliness there, 
but it will be the loveliness of virtue, as seen 
directly in God, and as reflected back again 
in family likeness from all his children — it 
will be this that shall give its purest and 
sweetest transports to the soul. In a word, 
the main reward of paradise, is spiritual joy 
— and that, springing at once from the love 
and the possession of spiritual excellence. 
It is such a joy as sin extinguishes on the 
moment of its entering the soul ; and such a 
joy as is again restored to the soul, and that 
immediately on its being restored to righ- 
teousness. 



It is thus that heaven may be established 
upon earth, and the petition of our Lord's 
prayer be fulfilled, " Thy kingdom come." 
This petition receives its best explanation 
from the one which follows : " Thy will be 
done on earth as it is done in heaven." It 
just requires a similarity of habit and cha- 
racter in the two places, to make out a simi- 
larity of enjoyment. Let us attend, then, to 
the way in which the services of the upper 
sanctuary are rendered — not in the spirit of 
legality, for this gendereth to bondage; but 
in the spirit of love, which gendereth to the 
beatitude of the affections rejoicing in their 
best and most favourite indulgence. They 
do not work there, for the purpose of mak- 
ing out the conditions of a bargain. They 
do not act agreeably to the pleasure of God, 
in order to obtain the gratification of any 
distinct will or distinct pleasure of their 
own, in return for it. Their will is, in fact, 
identical with the will of God. There is a 
perfect unison of taste and of inclination, 
between the creature and the Creator. They 
are in their element, when they are feeling 
righteously, and doing righteously. Obe- 
dience is not drudgery, but delight to them ; 
and as much as there is of the congenial 
between animal nature, and the food that is 
suitable to it, so much is there of the con- 
genial between the moral nature of heaven, 
and its sacred employments and services. 
Let the will of God, then, be done here, as 
it is done there, and not only will character 
and conduct be the same here as there, but 
they will also resemble each other in the 
style, though not in the degree of their 
blessedness. The happiness of heaven will 
be exemplified upon earth, along with the 
virtue of heaven — for, in truth, the main 
ingredient of that happiness is not given 
them in payment for work ; but it lies in the 
love they bear to the work itself. A man is 
never happier than when employed in that 
which he likes best. This is all a question 
of taste; but should such a taste be given as 
to make it a man's meat and drink to do the 
will of his Father, then is he in perfect 
readiness for being carried upwards to hea- 
ven, and placed beside the pure river of 
water of life, that proceedeth out of the 
throne of God and of the Lamb. This is the 
way in which you may make a heaven upon 
earth, not by heaping your reluctant offers 
at the shrine of legality, but by serving God 
because you love him ; and doing his will, 
because you delight to do him honour. 

And here we may remark, that the only 
possible conveyance for this new principle 
into the heart, is the Gospel of Jesus Christ 
— that in no other way, than through the 
acceptance of its free pardon, sealed by the 
blood of an atonement, which exalts the 
Lawgiver, can the soul of man be both 
emancipated from the fear of terror, and 
solemnized into the fear of humble and holy 



VIII.] 



THE NATURE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 



417 



reverence — that it is only in conjunction 
with the faith which justifies, that the love 
of gratitude, and the love of moral esteem, 
are made to arise in the bosom of regene- 
rated man; and, therefore, to bring down 
the virtues of heaven, as well as the peace 
of heaven, into this lower world, we know 



not what else can be done, than to urge 
upon you the great propitiation of the New 
Testament — nor are we aware of any ex- 
pedient by which all the cold and freezing 
sensations of legality can be done away, 
but by your thankful and unconditional ac- 
ceptance of Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 



SERMON VIII. 
The Nature of the Kingdom of God. 
" For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power." — 1 Corinthians iv. 20, 



There is a most important lesson to be 
derived from the variety of senses in which 
the phrases " kingdom of God," and " king- 
dom of heaven," are evidently made use of 
in the New Testament. If it, at one time, 
carry our thoughts to that place where God 
sits in visible glory, and where, surrounded 
by the family of the blessed, he presides in 
full and spiritual authority — it, at another 
time, turns our thoughts inwardly upon 
ourselves, and instead of leading us to say, 
Lo, here, or lo, there, as if to some local 
habitation at a distance, it leads us, by the 
declaration, that the "kingdom of God is 
within us," to look for it into our own 
breast, and to examine whether heavenly 
affections have been substituted there in the 
place of earthly ones. Such is the tendency 
of our imagination upon this subject, that 
the kingdom of heaven is never mentioned, 
without our minds being impelled thereby 
to take an upward direction — to go aloft to 
that place of spaciousness, and of splendour, 
and of psalmody, which forms the residence 
of angels; and where the praises both of 
redeemed and unfallen creatures, rise in one 
anthem of gratulation to the Father, who 
rejoices over them all. 

Now, it is evident, that in dwelling upon 
such an elysium as this, the mind can pic- 
ture to itself a thousand delicious accom- 
paniments, which, apart from moral and 
spiritual character altogether, are fitted to 
regale animal, and sensitive, and unrenewed 
man. There may be sights of beauty and 
brilliancy for the eye. There may be sounds 
of sweetest melody for the ear. There may 
be innumerable sensations of delight, from 
the adaptation which obtains between the 
materialism of surrounding heaven, and the 
materialism of our own transformed and 
glorified bodies. There may even be poured 
upon us, in richest abundance, a higher and 
a nobler class of enjoyments — and separate 
still from the possession of holiness, of that 
peculiar quality, by the accession of which 
a sinner is turned into a saint, and the man 
who, before, had an entire aspect of secu- 
3 G 



larity and of the world, looks as if he had 
been cast over again in another mould, and 
come out breathing godly desires, and aspir- 
ing, with a newly created fervour, after 
godly enjoyments. And so, without any 
such conversion as this, heaven may still be 
conceived to minister a set of very refined 
and intellectual gratifications. One may 
figure it so formed, as to adapt itself to the 
senses of man, though he should possess 
not one single virtue of the temple, or of 
the sanctuary; and one may figure it to be 
so formed, as, though alike destitute of these 
virtues, to adapt itself even to the spirit of 
man, and to many of the loftier principles 
and capacities of his nature. His taste may 
find an ever-recurring delight in the pano- 
rama of its sensible glories ; and his fancy 
wander untired among all the realities and 
all the possibilities of created excellence; 
and his understanding be feasted to ecstacy 
among those endless varieties of truth, 
which are ever pouring in a rich flood of 
discovery, upon his mind; and even his 
heart be kept in a glow of warm and kindly 
affection among the cordialities of that be- 
nevolence, by which he is surrounded. All 
this is possible to be conceived of heaven; 
and when we add its secure and everlasting 
exemption from the agonies of hell, let us 
not wonder, that such a heaven should be 
vehemently desired by those who have not 
advanced by the very humblest degree of 
spiritual preparation, for the real heaven of 
the New Testament — who have not the 
least congeniality of feeling with that which 
forms its most essential and characteristic 
blessedness — who cannot sustain on earth 
for a very short interval of retirement, the 
labour and the weariness of communion 
with God — who, though they could relish 
to the uttermost, all the sensible and all the 
intellectual joys of heaven, yet hold no taste 
of sympathy whatever, with its hallelujahs, 
and its songs of raptured adoration — and 
who, therefore, if transported at this mo- 
ment, or if transported after death, with the 
frame and character of soul that they have 



418 



THE NATURE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 



[sERM. 



at this moment, to the New Jerusalem, and 
the city of the living God, would positively 
find themselves aliens, and out of their kin- 
dred and rejoicing element, however much 
they may sigh after a paradise of pleasure, 
or a paradise of poetry. 

It ^ may go to dissipate this sentimental 
illusion, if we ponder well the meaning 
which is often assigned to the kingdom of 
heaven in the Bible ; if we reflect, that it is 
often made to attach personally to a hu- 
man creature upon earth, as well as to be 
situated locally in some distant and myste- 
rious region away from us — that to be the 
subject of such a kingdom, it is not indis- 
pensable that our residence be within the 
limits of an assigned territory, any more, in 
fact, than that the subject of an earthly 
sovereign should not remain so, though 
travelling, for a time, beyond the confines 
of his master's jurisdiction. He may, though 
away from his country in person, carry 
about with him in mind a full principle 
of allegiance to his country's sovereign; 
and may, both in respect of legal duty, and 
of his own most willing and affectionate 
compliance with it, remain associated with 
him both in heart and in political relation- 
ship. He is still a member of that king- 
dom in the domains of which he was born; 
and in the very same way, may a man be 
travelling the journey of life in this world, 
and be all the while a member of the king- 
dom of heaven. The being who reigns in 
supreme authority there may, even in this 
land of exile and alienation, have some one 
devoted subject, who renders to the same 
authority the deference of his heart, and 
the subordination of his whole practice. 
The will of God may possess such a moral 
ascendency over his will, as that when the 
one commands, the other promptly and 
cheerfully obeys. The character of God 
may stand revealed in such charms of per- 
fection and gracefulness to the eye of his 
mind, that by ever looking to him he both 
loves and is made like unto him. A sense 
of God may pervade his every hour, and 
every employment, even as it is the hand 
of God which preserves him continually, 
and through the actual power of God, that 
he lives and moves, as well as has his being. 
Such a man, if such a man there be on the 
face of our world, has the kingdom of God 
set up in his heart. He is already one of 
the children of the kingdom. He is not 
locally in heaven, and yet his heaven is be- 
gun. He has in his eye the glories of hea- 
ven ; though, as yet, he sees them through 
a glass darkly. He feels in his bosom the 
principles of heaven ; though, still at war 
with the propensities of nature, they do not 
yet reign in all the freeness of an undis- 
puted ascendency. He carries in his heart 
the peace, and the joy, and the love, and the 
elevation of heaven ; though under the in- 



cumbrance of a vile body, the spiritual repast 
which is thus provided, is not without its mix- 
tures, and without its mitigation. In a word, 
the essential elements of heaven's reward, 
and of heaven's felicity, are all in his posses- 
sion. He tastes the happiness of heaven in 
kind, though not in its full and finished de- 
gree. When he gets to heaven above, he will 
not meet there with a happiness differing in 
character from that which he now feels; but 
only higher in gradation. There may be 
crowns of material splendour. There may be 
trees of unfading loveliness. There may be 
pavements of emerald— and canopies of 
brightest radiance— and gardens of deep and 
tranquil security — and palaces of proud and 
stately decoration — and a city of lofty pin- 
nacles, through which there unceasing flows 
a river of gladness, and where jubilee is 
ever rung with the concord of seraphic 
voices. But these are only the accessaries 
of heaven. They form not the materials 
of its substantial blessedness. Of this the 
man who toils in humble drudgery, an utter 
stranger to the delights of sensible pleasure, 
or the fascinations of sensible glory, has got 
already a foretaste in his heart. It consists 
not in the enjoyment of created good, nor 
in the survey of created magnificence. It is 
drawn in a direct stream, through the chan- 
nels of love and of contemplation, from the 
fullness of the Creator. It emanates from the 
countenance of God, manifesting the spiritu- 
al glories of his holy and perfect character, 
on those whose characters are kindred to his 
own. And if on earth there is no tendency 
towards such a character — no process of 
restoration to the lost image of the Godhead 
— no delight in prayer — no relish for the 
sweets of intercourse with our Father, now 
unseen, but then to be revealed to the view 
of his immediate worshippers— then, let 
our imaginations kindle as they may, with 
the beatitudes of our fictitious heaven, the 
true heaven of the Bible is what we shall 
never reach, because it is a heaven that we 
are not fitted to enjoy. 

But such a view of the matter seems not 
merely to dissipate a sentimental illusion 
which obtains upon the subject. It also 
serves to dissipate a theological illusion. 
Ere we can enter heaven, there must be 
granted to us a legal capacity of admission 
—and Christ by his atoning death, and 
perfect righteousness, has purchased this 
capacity for those who believe ; and they, 
by the very act of believing, are held to be 
in possession of it, just as a man by stretch- 
ing out his hand to a deed or a passport, 
becomes vested with all the privileges which 
are thereby conveyed to the holder. Now, 
in the zeal of controversialists, (and it is a 
point most assuredly about which they 
cannot be too zealous)— in their zeal to 
clear up and to demonstrate the ground on 
which the sinner's legal capacity must rest, 



VIII.") 



THE NATURE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 



419 



there has, with many, been a sad overlook- 
ing of what is no less indispensable, even 
his personal capacity. And yet even on the 
lowest and grossest conceptions of what 
that is which constitutes the felicity of hea- 
ven, it would be no heaven, and no place 
of enjoyment at all, without a personal 
adaptation on the part of its occupiers, to the 
kind of happiness which is current there. 
If that happiness consisted entirely in sights 
of magnificence, of what use would it be to 
confer a title-deed of entry on a man who 
was blind ? To make it heaven to him, his 
eyes must be opened. Or, if that happiness 
consisted in sounds of melody, of what use 
would a passport be to the man who was 
deaf? To make out a heaven for him, a 
change must be made on the person which 
he wears, as well as in the place which he 
occupies, and his ears must be unstopped. 
Or, if that happiness consisted in fresh and 
perpetual accessions of new and delightful 
truth to the understanding, what would rights 
and legal privileges avail to him who was 
sunk in helpless idiotism ? To provide him 
with a heaven, it is not enough that he be 
transported to a place among the mansions 
of the celestial : he must be provided with 
a new faculty, and as before a change be- 
hooved to be made upon the senses ; so 
now, ere heaven can be heaven to its occu- 
pier, ,a change must be made upon his 
mind. And, in like manner, my brethren, 
if that happiness shall consist in the love 
of God for his goodness, and in the love of 
God for the moral and spiritual excellence 
which belongs to him — if it shall consist in 
the play and exercise of affections directed 
to such objects as are alone worthy of their 
most exalted regard — if it shall consist in 
the movements of a heart now attracted in 
reverence and admiration towards all that 
is noble, and righteous, and holy — it is not 
enough to constitute a heaven for the sin- 
ner, that God is there in visible manifesta- 
tion, or that heaven is lighted up to him in 
a blaze of spiritual glory. His heart must 
be made a fit recipient for the impression 
of that glory. Of what possible enjoyment 
to him is heaven, as his purchased inherit- 
ance, if heaven be not also his precious and 
his much-loved home? To create enjoy- 
ment for a man, there must be a suitable- 
ness between the taste that is in him, and 
the objects that are around him. To make 
a natural man happy upon earth, we may 
let his taste alone, and surround him with 
favourable circumstances — w T ith smiling 
abundance, and merry companionship, 
and bright anticipations of fortune or of 
fame, and the salutations of public respect, 
and the gaieties of fashionable amusement, 
and the countless other pleasures of a 
world, which yields so much to delight and 
to diversify the short-lived period of its 
fleeting generations. To make the same 



man happy in heaven, it would suffice sim- 
ply to transmit him there with the same 
taste, and to surround him with the same 
circumstances. But God has not so order- 
ed heaven. He will not suit the circum 
stances of heaven to the character of man ; 
and therefore to make it, that man can be 
happy there, nothing remains but to suit, 
the character of man to the circumstances 
of heaven ; and, therefore it is, that to bring 
about heaven to a sinner, it is not enough 
that there be the preparation of a place for 
him ; there must be a preparation of him 
for the place — it is not enough that he be 
meet in law, he must be meet in person — 
it is not enough that there be a change in 
his forensic relation towards God, there 
must be a change in the actual disposition 
of his heart towards him ; and unless deli- 
vered from his earth-born propensities — 
unless a clean heart be created, and a right 
spirit renewed — unless transformed into a 
holy and godlike character, it is quite in 
vain to have put a deed of entry into his 
hands — heaven will have no charm for 
him — all its notes of rapture will fall 
with tasteless insipidity upon his ear — and 
justification itself will cease to be a privi- 
lege. 

Let us cease to wonder, then, at the fre- 
quent application, in Scripture, of this 
phrase to a state of personal feeling and 
character upon earth ; and rather let us 
press upon our remembrance the important 
lessons which are to be gathered from such 
an application. In that passage where it 
is said, that the "kingdom of God is not 
meat and drink, but righteousness, and 
peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost," there 
can be no doubt that the reference is alto- 
gether personal, for the apostle is here con- 
trasting the man who, in these things, 
serveth Christ, with the man who eateth 
unto the Lord, or who eateth not unto the 
Lord. And in the passage now before us, 
there can be as little doubt, that the refer- 
ence is to the kingdom of God, as fixed and 
substantiated upon the character of the 
human soul. He was just before alluding 
to those who could talk of the things of 
Christ, while it remained questionable 
whether there was any change or any effect 
that could at all attest the power of these 
things upon their person and character. 
This is the point which he proposed to 
ascertain on his next visit to them. "I 
will come to you shortly, if the Lord will, 
and will know not the speech of them 
which are puffed up, but the power. For 
the kingdom cf God is not in word, but in 
power." It is not enough to mark you as 
the children of this kingdom ; or as those 
over whose hearts the reign of God is es- 
tablished ; or as those in whom a prepara- 
tion is going on here for a place of glory and 
blessedness hereafter — that you know the 



420 



THE NATURE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 



[SERM. 



terms of orthodoxy, or that you can speak 
its language. If even an actual belief in 
its doctrine could reside in your mind, 
without fruit and without influence, this 
would as little avail you. But it is well to 
know, both from experience and from the 
information of him who knew what was in 
man, that an actual belief of the Gospel, is 
at all times an effectual belief— that upon 
the entrance of such a belief, the kingdom 
of God comes to us with power, being that 
which availeth, even faith, working by love, 
and purifying the heart, and overcoming 
the world. 

One of the simplest cases of the kingdom 
of God in word, and not in power, is that 
of a child, with its memory stored in pas- 
sages of Scriptures, and in all the answers 
to all the questions of a substantial and 
well-digested catechism. In such an in- 
stance, the tongue may be able to rehearse 
the whole expression of evangelical truth, 
while neither the meaning of the truth is 
perceived by the understanding, nor, of 
consequence, can the moral influence of the 
truth be felt in the heart. The learner has 
got words, but nothing more. This is the 
whole fruit of his acquisition ; nor would 
it make any difference, in as far as the ef- 
fect at the time is concerned, though, in- 
stead of words adapted to the expression 
of Christian doctrine, they had been the 
words of a song, or a fable, or any secular 
narrative and performance whatever. This 
is all undeniable enough — if we could only 
prevail on many men, and many women, 
not to deny its application to themselves— 
if we could only convince our grown-up 
children of the absolute futility of many of 
their exercises— if we could only arouse 
from their dormancy our listless readers 
of the Bible — our men, who make a mere 
piece-work of their Christianity ; who, in 
making way through the Scriptnres, do it 
by the page, and, in addressing prayers to 
their Maker, do it by the sentence ; with 
whom the perusal of the sacred volume, is 
absolutely little better than a mere exercise 
of the lip, or of the eye ; and a preference 
for orthodoxy is little better than a prefer- 
ence for certain familiar and well-known 
sounds ; where the thinking principle is al- 
most never in contact with the matter of 
theological truth, however conversant both 
their mouths and their memories may be 
with the language of it — so that in fact the 
doctrine by the knowledge of which, and 
the power of which it is, that we are saved, 
lies as effectually hidden from their minds, 
as if it lay wrapt in hieroglyphical obscu- 
rity ; or, as if their intellectual organ was 
shut against all communication with any 
thing without them; and thus it is, that 
what is not perceived by the mental eye, 
having no possible operation upon the men- 
tal feelings, or mental purposes, the king- 



dom of God cometh to them in word only 
while not in power. 

But again, what is translated word in this 
verse, is also capable of being rendered by 
the term reason. It may not only denote 
that which constitutes the material vehicle 
by which the argument conceived in the 
mind of one man is translated into the 
mind of another; it may also denote the 
argument itself; and when rendered in 
this way, it offers to our notice a very in- 
teresting case, of which there are not want- 
ing many exemplifications. In the case 
just now adverted to, the mere word is in 
the mouth, without its corresponding idea 
being in the mind ; but in the case imme- 
diately before us, ideas are present as well 
as words, and every intellectual faculty is 
at its post, for the purpose of entertaining 
them — the attention most thoroughly awake 
— and the curiosity on the stretch of its ut- 
most eagerness^ — and the judgment most 
busily employed in the work of comparing 
one doctrine, and one declaration with an- 
other — and the reason conducting its long 
or its intricate processes ; and, in a word, 
the whole machinery of the mind as power- 
fully stimulated by a theological, as it ever 
can be by a natural or scientific specula- 
tion — and yet, with this seeming advance- 
ment that it makes from the language of 
Christianity to the substance of Chris- 
tianity, what shall we think of it, if there 
be no advancement whatever in the power 
of Christianity — no accession to the soul 
of any one of those three ingredients, 
which, taken together, make up the apos- 
tle's definition of the kingdom of God — no 
augmentation either of its righteousness, or 
its peace, or its joy in the Holy Ghost — 
the man, no doubt, very much engrossed and 
exercised with the subject of divinity, but 
with as little of the real spirit and charac- 
ter of divinity, thereby transferred into his 
own spirit, and his own character, as if he 
were equally engrossed and equally exer- 
cised with the subject of mathematics — re- 
maining, in short, after all his doctrinal 
acquisitions of the truth, an utter stranger 
to the moral influence of the truth ; and 
proving, in the fact of his being practically 
and personally the very same man as be- 
fore, that if the kingdom of God is not 
in word, it is as little in argument, but in 
power. 

If it be of importance to know, that a 
man may lay hold, by his memory, of all 
the language of Christianity, and yet not 
be a Christian — it is also of importance to 
know that a man may lay hold by his un- 
derstanding, of all the doctrine of Chris- 
tianity, and yet not be a Christian. It is 
our opinion, that in this case the man has 
only an apparent belief, without having an 
actual belief— that all the doctrine is con- 
ceived by him, without being credited by 



VIII.] 



THE NATURE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 



421 



him — that it is the object, of his fancy, 
without being the object of his faith — and 
that, as on the one hand, if the conviction 
be real, the consequence of another heart, 
and another character, will be sure ; so, on 
the other hand, and on the principle, of 
" by their fruits shall ye know them," if he 
want the fruit, it is just because he is in 
want of the foundation — if there be no pro- 
duce, it is because there is no principle; 
having experienced no salvation from sin 
here, he shall experience no salvation from 
the abode of sinners hereafter. If faith 
were present with him, he would be kept 
by the powers of it unto salvation, from 
both ; but destitute as he proves himself to 
be now of the faith which sanctifies, he will 
be found then, in the midst of all his sem- 
blances, and all his delusions, to have been 
equally destitute of the faith which justifies. 

And it is, perhaps, not so difficult to stir 
up in the mind of the learned controver- 
sialist, and the deeply-exercised scholar, the 
suspicion, that with all his acquirements 
in the lore of theology, he is, in respect of 
its personal influence upon himself, still in 
a state of moral and spiritual unsoundness, 
it is not so difficult to raise this feeling of 
self-condemnation in his mind, as it is to do 
it in the mind of him who has selected his 
one favourite article, and there, resolved, if 
die he must, to die hard, has taken up his 
obstinate and immoveable position — and 
retiring within the intrenchment of a few 
verses of the Bible, will defy all the truth 
and all the thunder of its remaining decla- 
rations ; and with an orthodoxy which car- 
ries on all its play in his head, without one 
moving or one softening touch upon his 
heart, will stand out to the eye of the world, 
both in avowed principle, and in its corres- 
ponding practice, a secure, sturdy, firm, 
impregnable Antinomian. He thinks that 
he will have heaven, because he has faith. 
But if his faith do not bring the virtues of 
heaven into his heart, it will never spread 
either the glory or the security of heaven 
around his person. The region to which 
he vainly thinks of looking forward, is a 
region of spirituality ; and he himself must 
be spiritualized, ere it can prove to him a 
region of enjoyment. If he count on a 
different paradise from this, he is as widely 
mistaken as they who dream of the luxury 
that awaits them in the paradise of Maho- 
met. He misinterprets the whole under- 
taking of Jesus Christ. He degrades the 
salvation which He hath achieved, into a 
salvation from animal pain. He transforms 
the heaven which He has opened into a 
heaven of animal gratifications. He for- 
gets, that on the great errand of man's re- 
storation, it is not more necessary to recal 
our departed species to the heaven from 
which they had wandered, than it is to re- 
cal to the bosom of man its departed worth, 



and its departed excellence. The one is 
what faith will do on the other side of 
time. But the other just as certainly faith 
must do on this side of time. It is here 
that heaven begins. It is here that eternal 
life is entered upon. It is here that man 
first breathes the air of immortality. It is 
upon earth that he learns the rudiments of 
a celestial character, and first tastes of ce- 
lestial enjoyments. It is here, that the well 
of water is struck out in the heart of reno- 
vated man, and that fruit is made to grow 
unto holiness, and then, in the end, there is 
life everlasting. The man whose thread- 
bare orthodoxy is made up of meagre and 
unfruitful positions, may think that he 
walks in clearness, while he is only walk- 
ing in the cold light of speculation. He 
walks in the feeble sparks of his own kin- 
dling. Were it fire from the sanctuary, it 
would impart, to his unregenerated bosom, 
of the heat, and spirit, and love of the sanc- 
tuary. This is the sure result of the faith 
that is unfeigned — and all that a feigned 
faith can possibly make out, will be a ficti- 
tious title deed, which will not stand before 
the light of the great day of final examina- 
tion. And thus will it be found, I fear, in 
many cases of marked and ostentatious pro- 
fessorship, how possible a thing it is to 
have an appearance of the kingdom of God 
in word, and the kingdom of God in letter, 
and the kingdom of God in controversy — 
while the kingdom of God is not in power. 

But once more—instead of laying a false 
security upon one article, it is possible to 
have a mind familiarized to all the articles 
— to admit the need of holiness, and to 
demonstrate the channel of influence by 
which it is brought down from heaven 
upon the hearts of believers— to cast an eye 
of intelligence over the whole symphony 
and extent of Christian doctrine — to lay 
bare those ligaments of connection by 
which a true faith in the mind is ever sure 
to bring a new spirit and a new practice 
along with it : and to hold up the lights 
both of Scripture and of experience, over the 
whole process of man's regeneration. It is 
possible for one to do all this — and yet to 
have no part in that regeneration — to de- 
clare with ability and effect the Gospel to 
others, and yet himself be cast away — to 
unravel the whole of that spiritual mechan- 
ism, by which a sinner is transformed into 
a saint, while he does not exemplify that 
mechanism upon his own person— to ex- 
plain what must be done, what must be 
undergone in the process of becoming one 
of the children of the kingdom, while he 
remains one of the children of this world. 
To him the kingdom of God hath come in 
word, and it hath come in letter, and it 
hath come in natural discernment ; but it 
hath not come in power. He may have 
profoundly studied the whole doctrine of 



422 



THE NATURE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 



|~SERM. 



the kingdom— and have conceived the va- 
rious ideas of which it is composed — and 
have embodied them in words — and have 
poured them forth in utterance — and yet 
be as little spirit ualized by these manifold 
operations, as the air is spiritualized by its 
being the avenue for the sounds of his 
voice to the ears of his listening auditory. 
The living man may, with all the force of 
his active intelligence, be a mere vehicle of 
transmission. The Holy Ghost may leave 
the message to take its own way through 
his mind — and may refuse the accession of 
his influence, till it make its escape from 
the lips of the preacher — and may trust for 
its conveyance to those aerial undulations 
by which the report is carried forward to 
an assembled multitude — and may only, 
after the entrance of hearing has been ef- 
fected for the terms of the message, may 
only, after the unaided powers of moral 
and physical nature have brought the mat- 
ter thus far, may then, and not till then, 
add his own influence to the truths of the 
message, and send them with this impreg- 
nation from the ear to the conscience of 
any whom he listeth. And thus from the 
workings of a cold and desolate bosom in 
the human expounder, may there proceed 
a voice which on its way to some of those 
who are assembled around him, shall turn 
out to be a voice of urgency and power. 
He may be the instrument of blessings to 
others, which have never come with kindly 
or effective influence upon his own heart. 
He may inspire an energy, which he does 
not feel, and pour a comfort into the 
wounded spirit, the taste of which, and the 
enjoyment of which is not permitted to his 
own— and nothing can serve more effec- 
tually than this experimental fact to hum- 
ble him, and to demonstrate the existence 
of a power which cannot be wielded by all 
the energies of Nature — a power often re- 
fused to eloquence, often refused to the 
might and the glory of human wisdom — 
often refused to the most strenuous exer- 
tions of human might and human talent, 
and generally met with in richest abun- 
dance among the ministrations of the men 
of simplicity and prayer. 

Some of you have heard of the individual, 
who, under an oppression of the severest 
melancholy, implored relief and counsel 



from his physician. The unhappy patient 
was advised to attend the performances of 
a comedian, who had put all the world in 
ecstacies. But it turned out, that the patient 
was the comedian himself — and that while 
his smile was the signal of merriment to all, 
his heart stood uncheered and motionless, 
amid the gratulations of an applauding 
theatre — and evening after evening, did he 
kindle around him a rapture in which he 
could not participate — a poor, helpless, de- 
jected mourner, among the tumults of that 
high-sounding gaiety, which he himself had 
created. 

Let all this touch our breasts with the 
persuasion of the nothingness of man. Let 
it lead us to withdraw our confidence from 
the mere instrument, and to carry it up- 
wards to him who alone worketh all in all. 
Let it reconcile us to the arrangements of 
his providence, and assure our minds, that 
he can do with one arrangement, what we 
fondly anticipated from another. Let us 
cease to be violently affected by the muta- 
bilities of a fleeting and a shifting world — 
and let nothing be suffered the power ol 
dissolving for an instant, that connection of 
trust which should ever subsist between our 
minds and the will of the all-working Deity. 
Above all, let us carefully separate between 
our liking for certain accompaniments of 
the word, and our liking for the word it- 
self. Let us be jealous of those human pre- 
ferences which may bespeak some human 
and adventitious influence upon our hearts, 
and be altogether different from the influ- 
ence of Christian truth upon Christianized 
and sanctified affections. Let us be tena- 
cious only of one thing — not of holding by 
particular ministers — not of saying, that "I 
am Paul, or Cephas, or Apollos"— not of 
idolizing the servant, while the Master is 
forgotten,— but let us hold by the Head, 
even Christ. He is the source of all spirit- 
ual influence— and while the agents whom 
he employs, can do no more than bring the 
kingdom of God to you in word — it lies 
with him either to exalt one agency, or to 
humble and depress another— and either 
with or without such an agency, by the 
demonstration of that Spirit, which is given 
unto faith, to make the kingdom of God 
come into your hearts with power. 



IX.] 



ON THE REASONABLENESS OF FAITH. 



423 



SERMON IX. 
On the Reasonableness of Faith. 

" But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be 

revealed." — Galatians hi. 23. 



c: Shut up unto the faith." This is the 
expression which we fix upon as the subject 
of our present discourse — and to let you 
more effectually into the meaning of it, it 
may be right to state, that in the preceding 
clause "kept under the law," the term kept, 
is, in the original Greek, derived from a 
word which signifies a sentinel. The mode 
of conception is altogether military. The 
law is made to act the part of a sentry, 
guarding every avenue but one — and that 
one leads those who are compelled to take 
it to the faith of the Gospel. They are shut 
up to this faith as their only alternative — 
like an enemy driven by the superior tac- 
tics of an opposing general, to take up the 
only position in which they can maintain 
themselves, or fly to the only town in which 
they can find a refuge or a security. This 
seems to have been a favourite style of ar- 
gument with Paul, and the way in which 
he often carried on an intellectual warfare 
with the enemies of his master's cause. It 
forms the basis of that masterly and deci- 
sive train of reasoning, which we have in 
his epistle to the Romans. By the operation 
of a skilful tactics, he, (if we may be al- 
lowed the expression) manoeuvred them, 
and shut them up to the faith of the Gospel. 
It gave prodigious effect to his argument, 
when he reasoned with them, as he often 
does, upon their own principles, and turned 
them into instruments of conviction against 
themselves. With the Jews he reasoned as 
a Jew. He made a full concession to them 
of the leading principles of Judaism — and 
this gave him possession of the vantage 
ground upon which these principles stood. 
He made use of the Jewish law as a senti- 
nel to shut them out of every other refuge, 
and to shut them up to the refuge laid be- 
fore them in the Gospel. He led them to 
Christ by a school-master which they could 
not refuse — and the lesson of this school- 
master, though a very decisive, was a very 
short one. " Cursed be he that continueth 
not in all the words of this law to do them." 
But, in point of fact, they had not done 
them. To them belonged the curse of the 
violated law. The awful severity of its! 
sanctions was upon them. They found the 
faith and the free offer of the Gospel to be 
the only avenue open to receive them. They 
were shut up unto this avenue ; and the law, 
by concluding them all to be under sin, left 
them no other outlet but the free act of grace 



and of mercy laid before us in the New Tes- 
tament. 

But this is not the only example of that 
peculiar way in which St. Paul has managed 
his discussions with the enemies of the faith. 
He carried the principle of being all things 
to all men into his very reasonings. He had 
Gentiles as well as Jews to contend with ; 
and he often made some sentiment or con- 
viction of their own, the starting point of 
his argument. In this same epistle to the 
Romans, he pleaded with the Gentiles the 
acknowledged law of nature and of con- 
science. In his speech to the men of Athens, 
he dated his argument from a point in their 
own superstition. In this way he drew con- 
verts both from the ranks of Judaism, and 
the ranks of idolatry ; and whether it was 
the school of Gamaliel in Jerusalem, or the 
school of -poetry and philosophy in coun- 
tries of refinement, that he had to contend 
with, his accomplished mind was never at 
a loss for principles by which he bore down 
the hostility of his adversaries, and shut 
them up unto the faith. 

But there is a fashion in philosophy as well 
as in other things. In the course of centu- 
ries, new schools are formed, and the old, 
with all their doctrines, and all their plausi- 
bilities, sink into oblivion. The restless ap- 
petite of the human mind for speculation, 
must have novelties to feed upon— and after 
the countless fluctuations of two thousand 
years, the age in which we live has its own 
taste, and its own style of sentiment to cha- 
racterize it. If Paul, vested with a new 
apostolical commission, were to make his 
appearance amongst us, we should like to 
know how he would shape his argument 
to the reigning taste and philosophy of the 
times. We should like to confront him with 
the literati of the day, and hear him lift his 
intrepid voice in our halls and colleges. In 
his speech to the men of Athens, he refers 
to certain of their own poets. We should 
like to hear his reference to the poetry and 
the publications of modern Europe — and 
while the science of this cultivated age 
stood to listen in all the pride of academic 
dignity, we should like to know the argu- 
ments of him who was determined to know 
nothing save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 

But all this is little better than the indul- 
gence of a dream. St. Paul has already 
fought the good fight, and his course is 
finished. The battles of the faith are now 



ON THE REASONABLENESS OF FAITH. 



[SERM 



in other hands — and though the wisdom, 
and the eloquence, and the inspiration of 
Paul have departed from among us, yet he 
has left behind him the record of his princi- 
ples. With this for our guide, we may at- 
tempt to do what he himself calls upon us 
to do. may attempt to be followers of 
him. We may imitate him in the intrepid 
avowal of his principles — and we may try, 
however humbly and imperfectly, to imi- 
tate his style of defending them. We may 
accommodate our argument to the reigning 
principles of the day. We may be all things 
to all men — and out of the leading varieties 
of taste and of sentiment which obtain in 
the present age, and in the present country, 
we may try if we can collect something, 
which may be turned into an instrument of 
conviction for reclaiming men from their 
delusions, and shutting them up unto the 
faith. 

There is first, then, the school of Natural 
Religion— a school founded on the compe- 
tency of the human mind to know God by 
the exercise of its own faculties — to clothe 
him in the attributes of its own demonstra- 
tion — to serve him by a worship and a law 
of its own discovery — and to assign to him 
a mode of procedure in the administration 
of this vast universe, upon the strength and 
the plausibility of its own theories. We have 
not time at present, for exposing the rash 
and unphilosophical audacity of all these 
presumptions. We lay hold of one of them, 
and we maintain, that if steadily adhered 
to, and consistently carried into its conse- 
quences, it would empty the school of na- 
tural religion of all its disciples — it would 
shut them up unto the faith, and impress 
one rapid and universal movement into the 
school of Christ. 

The principle which we allude to makes 
a capital figure in their self-formed specula- 
tions ; and it is neither more nor less than 
the judicial government of God over moral 
and accountable creatures. They hold that 
there is a law. They hold the human race 
to be bound to obedience. They hold the 
authority of the law to be supported by 
sanctions ; and that the truth, and justice, 
and dignity of the Supreme Being are in- 
volved in these sanctions being enforced 
and executed. One step more, and they 
are fairly shut up unto the faith. That law 
which they hold to be in full authority and 
operation over us, has been most unques- 
tionably violated. We appeal, as Paul did 
before us, to the actual state of the human 
heart, and of human performances. We ask 
them to open their eyes to the world around 
them — to respect, like true philosophers, the 
evidence of observation, and not to flinch 
from the decisive undeniable fact which 
this evidence lays before them. Men are 
under the law, and that law they have vio- 
lated. " There is not a just man on earth, 



that sinneth not." It is not to open, shame- 
less, and abandoned profligacy, that we are 
pointing your attention. We make our con- 
fident appeal to the purest and loveliest of 
the species. We rest our cause with the 
most virtuous individual of our nature. 
We enter his heart, and from what passes 
there, we can gather enough, and more than 
enough to overthrow this tottering and un- 
supported fabric. We take a survey of its 
desires, its wishes, its affections ; and we put 
the question to the consciousness of its pos- 
sessor, if all these move in obedient har- 
mony even to the law of natural religion. 
The external conduct viewed separately and 
in itself, is, in the eye of every enlightened 
moralist, nothing. It is mere visible display. 
Virtue consists in the motive which lies 
behind it ; and the soul is the place of its 
essential residence. Bring the soul, then, 
into immediate comparison with the law of 
God. Think of the pure and spiritual ser- 
vice which it exacts from you. Amid all the 
busy and complicated movements of the 
inner man, is there no estrangement from 
God? Are there no tumultuous wander- 
ings from that purity, and goodness, and 
truth, which even philosophers ascribe to 
him? Is there no shortcoming from the 
holiness of his law, and the magnificence of 
his eternity? Is there no slavish devotion 
to the paltry things of sense and of the 
world ? Is there no dreary interval of hours 
together, when God is unfelt and unthought 
of ? Is there no one time when the mind 
delivers itself up to the guidance of its own 
feelings, and its own vanities — when it 
moves at a distance from heaven; and 
whether in solitude or among acquaint- 
ances, carries along, without any reference 
to that Being whose arm is perpetually 
upon me ; who, at this moment, is at my 
right hand, and measures out to me every 
hairbreadth of my existence — who upholds 
me through every point of that time which 
runs from the first cry of my infancy, to that 
dark hour when the weight of my dying 
agonies is upon me— whose love and whose 
kindness are ever present to give me every 
breath which I draw, and every comfort 
which I enjoy? We grant the disciples of 
natural religion the truth of their own prin- 
ciple, that we are under the moral govern- 
ment of the Almighty • and by the simple 
addition of one undeniable fact to their 
speculation, we shut them up unto the 
faith. 

The simple fact is, that we are rebels to 
that government, and the punishment of 
these rebels is due to the vindication of its 
insulted authority. To say, that God will 
perpetually interpose with an act of oblivion, 
would be vastly convenient for us; but 
what then becomes of that moral govern- 
ment which figures away in the demonstra- 
tions of moralists ? Does it turn out, after 



ON THE REASONABLENESS CP FAITH. 



425 



all. to be nothing more than an idle and 
unmeaning declamation, on which they 
love to expatiate ; without any thing like 
real attention or belief on the part of the 
thinking principle ? If they are not true to 
their own professed convictions, we can 
undertake to shut them up to nothing. 
This is slipping from under us ; but it is by 
an actual desertion of their own principle. 
If you cannot get them to stand to the ar- 
gument, the argument is discharged upon 
them in vain. If this be the result, we do 
not promise ourselves that all we can say 
shall have any weight upon their convic- 
tions : not however, because they have 
gained a victory, but because they have be- 
taken themselves to flight. At the very mo- 
ment that we thought of shutting them up, 
and binding them in captivity to the obe- 
dience of the truth, they have turned about 
and got away from us — but how ? By an 
open renunciation of their own principle. 
Look at the great majority of infidel and 
demi-infidel authors, and they concur in 
representing man as an accountable subject, 
and God as a judge and a lawgiver. Ex- 
amine then the account which this subject 
has to render ; and you will see, in charac- 
ters to glaring to be resisted, that with the 
purest and most perfect individual amongst 
us. it is a wretched account of guilt and de- 
ficiency, ^"hat make you, of this ? Is the 
subject to rebel and disobey every hour, 
and the King, by a perpetual act of indul- 
gence, to efface" every character of truth 
and dignity from his government ? Do this, 
and you depose the legislator from his 
throne. You reduce the sanctions of his 
law to a name and a mockery. You give 
the lie to your own speculation, You pull 
the fabric of his moral government to 
pieces : and you give a spectacle to angels 
which makes them weep compassion on 
vour vanity — poor, pigmy, perishable man, 
prescribing a way to the Eternal, and bring- 
ing down the high economy of Heaven to 
the standard of his convenience, and his 
wishes. This will never do. If there be 
any truth in the law of God over the crea- 
tures whom he has formed, and if that law 
we have trampled upon, we are amenable 
to its sentence. Ours is the dark and un- 
sheltered state of condemnation — and if 
there be a single outlet or way of escaping, 
it cannot be such a way as will abolish the 
law, and degrade the Lawgiver ; but it must 
be such a way as will vindicate and exalt 
the Deity — as will pour a tide of splendour 
over the majesty of his high attributes — 
and as in the sublime language of the pro- 
phet, who saw it from afar, will magnify 
his law, and make it honourable. To this 
way we are fairly shut up. It is our only 
alternative. It is offered to us in the (Jos- 
pel of the Xew Testament. I am the way, 
says the Author of that Gospel, and by me, 
3 H 



if any man enter in, he shall be saved. In 
the appointment of this Mediat r — in his 
death, to make propitiation for the sins of 
the world — in his triumph over the powers 
of darkness — in the voice heard from the 
clouds of heaven, and issuing from the 
mouth of God himself, " This is my beloved 
Son, in whom I am well pleased" — in the 
resistless argument of the Apostle, who de- 
clares God to be just, and the justifier of 
him that believeth in Jesus — in the un- 
| doubted miracles which accompanied the 
preaching of this illustrious personage, and 
his immediate followers — in the noble train 
of prophecy, of which he was the object 
and the termination — in the choir of angeis 
from heaven, who simg his entrance into 
the world — and in the sublime ascension 
from the grave, which carried him away 
from it — in all this we see a warrant and a 
security given to the work of our redemp- 
tion in the New Testament, before which 
philosophy and all her speculations vanish 
into nothing. Let us betake ourselves to this 
way. Let us rejoice in being shut up unto it. 
It is passing, in fact, from death unto life ; or, 
from our being under the law, which speaks 
tribulation and wrath to every soul of man 
that doeth evil, to being under the grace 
which speaks quietness and assurance for 
ever to all that repair to it. The Scripture 
hath concluded all to be under sin, that the 
promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be 
given to them that believe. 

We now pass on from the school of na- 
tural religion to another school, possessing 
distinct features; and of which we con- 
ceive the most expressive designation to be, 
the school of Classical Morality. The les- 
sons of this school are given to the public 
in the form of periodical essays, elaborate 
dissertations on the principles of virtue, elo- 
quent and often highly interesting pictures 
of its loveliness and dignity, the charm that 
it imparts to domestic retirement, and its 
happy subservience to the peace, and order, 
and well-being of society. It differs from 
the former school in one leading particular 
It does not carry in its speculations so dis- 
tinct and positive a reference to the Su- 
preme Being. It is true, that our duties to 
him are found to occupy a place in the cata- 
logue of its virtues, but then the principle 
on which they are made to rest, is not the 
will of God, or obedience to his law. They 
are rather viewed as a species of moral ac- 
complishment, the effect of which is to ex- 
alt and embellish the individual. They 
form a component part of what they call 
virtue ; but if their "virtue be looked upon in 
no other light than as the dress of the mind, 
we maintain, that in the act of admiring 
this dress, and of even attempting to put it 
on, you may stand at as great a distance 
from" God, and he be as little in your 
thoughts, as in the tasteful choice of your 



428 



ON THE REASONABLENESS OF FAITH. 



[SERM. 



apparel, for the dress and ornament of the 
body. The object of these writers is not 
to bring their readers under a sense of the 
dominion and authority of God. The main 
principle of their morality, is not to please 
God, but to adorn man — to throw the 
splendour of virtue and accomplishment 
around Lim — to bring him up to what they 
call the end and dignity of his being — to 
raise him to the perfection of his nature — 
and to rear a spectacle for the admiration 
of men and of angels, whom they figure to 
look down with rapture, from their high 
eminence, on the perseverance of a mortal 
in the career of worth, and integrity, and 
honour. This is all very fine. It makes 
a good picture ; but what we insist upon is, 
that it is a fancy picture ; that, without the 
limits of Christianity and its influence, you 
will not meet with a single family, or a sin- 
gle individual to realize it — that the whole 
range of human experience furnishes no 
resemblance to it — and that it is as unlike 
to what we find among the men of the 
world, or in the familiar walks of society, 
as the garden of Eden is unlike the desola- 
tion of a pestilence. The representation is 
beautiful; but it is still more flattering than 
it is fair. It is a gaudy deception, and 
stands at as great a distance from the truth 
of observation, as it does from the truth of 
the New Testament. There is positively 
nothing like it in the whole round of hu- 
man experience. It is the mere glitter of 
imagination. It may serve to throw a tinsel 
colouring over the pages of an ambitious 
eloquence ; but with business and reality 
for our objects, we may describe the tour 
of many thousand families, or take our sta- 
tion for years in the market-place, and in 
our attempts to realize the picture which 
has been laid before us, we will be sure to 
meet with nothing but vanity, fatigue, and 
disappointment. Now, the question we 
have to put to the disciples of this school 
is, are they really sincere in this admira- 
tion of virtue ? Is it a true process of senti- 
ment within them 1 We are willing to 
share in their admiration and to ascend the 
highest summit of moral excellence along 
with them. We join issue with them on 
their own principle, and coupling it with 
the obvious and undeniable facts of man's 
depravity, we shut them up unto the faith. 
Virtue is the idol which they profess to 
venerate; and this virtue, as it exists in 
their own conceptions, and figures in their 
own dissertations, they cannot find. In pro- 
portion to their regard for virtue, must be 
their disappointment at missing her ; and 
when we witness the ardour of their senti- 
ments, and survey the elegance of their 
high-wrought pictures, what must be the 
humiliation of these men, we think, when 
they look on the world around them, and 
contrast the purity of their own sketches, I 



with the vices and the degradation of the 
species. Grosser beings may be satisfied 
with the average morality of mankind ; but 
if their be any truth in their high standard 
of perfection, or any sincerity in their as- 
pirations after it, it is impossible that they 
can be satisfied. By one single step do we 
lead them from the high tone of academic 
sentiment, to the sober humility of the Gos- 
pel. Give them their time to expatiate on 
virtue, and they cannot be too loud or elo- 
quent in her praises. We have only a sin- 
gle sentence to add to their description: 
The picture is beautiful, but on the whole 
surface of the world we defy them to fasten 
upon one exemplification ; and by every 
grace which they have thrown around their 
idol, and every addition they have made to 
her loveliness, they have only thrown man- 
kind at a distance more helpless and more 
irrecoverable from their high standard of 
duty and of excellence. 

The tasteful admirer of eloquent des- 
cription and beautiful morality, turns with 
disgust from those mortifying pictures of 
man, which abound in the New Testament. 
We only ask them to combine, with all this 
finery and eloquence, what has been esteem- 
ed as the best attribute of a philosopher, 
respect for the evidence of observation. 
We ask them to look at man as he is, and 
compare him with man as they would have 
him to be. If they find that he falls miser- 
ably short of their ideal standard of excel- 
lence, what is this but making a principle 
of their own the instrument jof shutting 
them up unto the faith of the Gospel, or, at 
least, shutting them up unto one of the 
most peculiar of its doctrines, the depravity 
of our nature, or the dismal ravage which 
the power of sin has made upon the moral 
constitution of the species. The doctrine 
of the academic moralist, so far from reach- 
ing a wound to the doctrine of the Apostle, 
gives an additional energy to all his senti- 
ments. "My mind approves the things 
which are more excellent, but how to per- 
form that which is good, I find not." " I 
delight in the law of God after the inward 
man." " But the good that I would, I do 
not, and the evil that I would not, that 
I do." 

But the faith of the Gospel does not stop 
here. It does not rest, satisfied with shut- 
ting you up unto a belief of the fact of hu- 
man depravity. That depravity it proposes 
to do away. It professes itself equal to the 
mighty achievement of rooting out the 
deeply seated corruption of our nature — of 
making us new creatures in Christ Jesus— 
of destroying the old man and his deeds, 
and bringing every rebellious movement 
within us under the dominion of a new 
and a better principle. If sincere in your 
admiration of virtue, you are shut up unto 
the only expedient for the re-establishment 



ON THE REASONABLENESS OF FAITH. 



427 



of virtue in the world. That expedient is 
the Spirit of God working in the heart of 
believers — quickening those who were dead 
in trespasses and sins, and bringing into 
action the same mighty power which raised 
Jesus from the grave, for raising us who 
believe in Jesus to newness of life and 
of obedience. This is the process of sancti- 
fication laid before us in the New Testa- 
ment. A wonderful process it undoubtedly 
is ; but are we who walk in a world of 
mystery, who have had only a few little 
years to look about us, and are bewildered 
at every step amid the variety of his works 
and of his counsels, are we to reject a pro- 
cess because it is wonderful ? Must no step, 
no operation of the mighty God be admit- 
ted, till it is brought under the dominion of 
our faculties ? — and shall we who strut our 
little hour in the humblest of his mansions, 
prescribe a law to him whose arm is abroad 
upon all worlds, and whose eye can take 
in, at a single glance, the immeasurable fields 
of creation and providence ? Be it as won- 
derful as it may — enough for us that it is 
made sure by the distinct and authentic 
testimony of heaven; and if, from the 
mouth of Jesus, who is heaven's messen- 
ger, we are told, that " unless a man be 
born of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the 
kingdom," it is our part submissively to 
acquiesce, and humbly to pray for it. 
Whatever repugnance others may feel to 
this part of the revealed counsels of God, 
those who look to a sublime standard of 
moral excellence, and sigh for the estab- 
lishment of its authority in the world, 
ought to rejoice in it. It is the only re- 
maining expedient for giving effect and re- 
ality to their own declamations, and they 
are fairly shut up unto it. Long have they 
tried to repair the disorders of a ruined 
world. Many an expedient has been fallen 
upon. Temples have been reared to science 
and to virtue ; and from the lofty academic 
chair, the wisdom of this world has lifted 
its voice amid a crowd of listening ad- 
mirers. For thousands of years, the un- 
aided powers and principles of humanity, 
have done their uttermost ; and tell us, ye 
advocates for the dignity of the species, the 
amount of their operation. If you refuse 
to answer, we shall answer for you ; and 
do not hesitate to say, that mighty in pro- 
mise, and wretched in accomplishment, 
you have positively done nothing — that all 
the wisdom of the schools, and all its 
vapouring demonstrations, have not had 
the least perceptible weight, when brought 
to bear upon the mass of human character, 
and human performance ; that the corrup- 
tion of the inner man has not yielded at 
all to your reasoning, and remains as un- 
subdued and as obstinate a principle as 
ever ; that the power of depravity in the 
soul of man is beyond you ; and that setting 



aside tne real operation of Christianity 
in the hearts of individuals and the surface 
dressing which the hand of legislation has 
thrown over the face of society, the human 
soul, if seen in its nakedness, would still 
be seen in all its original deformity — as 
strong in selfishness, as lawless in propen- 
sity, as devoted to sense and to time, as 
estranged from God, as unmindful of the 
obedience, and as indifferent to the reward 
and the inheritance of his children. 

The machine has gone into disorder; and 
there is not a single power within the com- 
pass of the machinery itself that is able to 
repair it. You must do as you do in other 
cases ; you must have recourse to some ex- 
ternal application. The inefficacy of every 
tried expedient shuts you up unto the only 
remaining one. Every human principle has 
been brought to bear upon it in vain, and 
we are shut up unto the necessity of some 
other principle that is beyond humanity, 
and above it. The Spirit of God is that 
mighty principle. That Spirit which moved 
on the face of the waters, and made light, 
and peace, and beauty to emerge out of the 
wild war of nature and her elements, is the 
revealed agent of heaven, for repairing the 
disorders of sin, and restoring the moral 
creation of God to health and to loveliness. 
It will create us anew unto good works. It 
will make us again after that image in 
which we were originally formed. It will 
sanctify us by the faith that is in Jesus. 
And by that mighty power whereby it is 
able to subdue all things unto itself, it will 
obtain the victory over that spirit which 
now worketh in the children of disobedience. 
The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is 
the first fruit of its operation; and to him 
who believes it is the satisfying pledge of 
its future triumphs. That body, which, left 
to itself, would have mouldered into frag- 
ments, is now in all the bloom of immor- 
tality, at the right hand of the everlasting 
throne. We have tried the operation of a 
thousand principles in vain. Let us repair 
to this, so great in promise, and so mighty 
in performance. It has already achieved its 
wonders. It has wrought those miracles of 
faith and fortitude which, in the first ages 
of Christianity, threw a gleam of triumph 
over the horrors of martyrdom. It has given 
us displays of the great and the noble which 
are without example in history; and from 
the first moment of its operation in the 
world, it has been working in those unseen 
retirements of the cottage and the family, 
where the eye of the historian never pene- 
trates. The admirers of virtue are fairly 
shut up unto the faith ; for faith is the only 
avenue that leads to it. " To your faith add 
virtue," says the Apostle ; and that you may 
be able to make the addition, the promise 
of the Spirit is given to them that believe. 
We should now pass on to another school. 



428 



ON THE REASONABLENESS OF FAITH. 



[SERM. 



the school of fine feeling and poetical senti- 
ment. It differs from the former in this — 
that while the one, in its dissertations on 
virtue, carries you up to the principles of 
duty, the other paints and admires it as a 
tasteful exhibition of what is fair and lovely 
in human character. The one makes virtue 
its idol because of its rectitude; the other 
makes virtue its idol because of its beauty; 
and the process of reasoning by which they 
are shut up unto the faith, is the same in 
both. Look at the actual state of the world, 
and you find that both the rectitude and the 
beauty are a-wanting. If you admire the 
one, and love the other, you are shut up 
unto the only expedient that is able to re- 
store them — and that expedient is sanctioned 
by the truth of heaven, and has all the power 
of omnipotence employed in giving effect 
to the operation — the Spirit of God subdu- 
ing all things unto itself— putting the law 
in our hearts, and writing it in our minds — 
and by bringing the soul of man under the 
influence of "whatsoever things are pure, 
or honest, or lovely, or of good report," 
creating a finer spectacle, and rearing a 
fairer and more unfading flower, than ever 
grew in the gardens of poetry. 

The processes are so entirely similar, that 
we would not have made it the distinct ob- 
ject of your attention, had it not been for 
the sake of an argument in behalf of the 
faith, which may be addressed with great 
advantage to the literary and cultivated or- 
ders of society. There are few people of 
literary cultivation, who have not read a 
novel. In this fictitious composition, there 
are often one or two perfect characters that 
figure in the history, and delight the imagi- 
nation of the reader; and you are at last 
landed in some fairy scene of happiness and 
virtue, which it is quite charming to con- 
template, and which you would like to 
aspire after; perhaps some interesting fami- 
ly in the bosom of which love, and inno- 
cence, and tranquility, have fixed them- 
selves — where the dark and angry passions 
never enter — where suspicion is unknown, 
and every eye meets another in the full 
glance of cordiality and affection — where 
charity reigns triumphant, and smiles benefi- 



cence and joy upon the humble cottages 
which surround it. Now this is very sooth- 
ing, and very delightful. It makes you glad 
to think of it. The fancy swells with rap- 
ture, and the moral principle of our nature 
lends its full approbation to a scene so vir- 
tuous and so exemplary. So much for the 
dream of fancy. Let us compare it with the 
waking images of truth. Walk from Dan to 
Beersheba, and tell us, if without and be- 
yond the operation of Gospel motives, and 
Gospel principles, the reality of life ever 
furnished you with a picture that is at all 
like the elegance and perfection of this ficti- 
tious history. Go to the finest specimen of 
such a family. Take your secret stand, and 
observe them in their more retired and in- 
visible moments. It is not enough to pay 
them a ceremonious visit, and observe them 
in the put on manners and holiday dress of 
general company. Look at them when all 
this disguise and finery are thrown aside. 
Yes, we have no doubt, that you will per- 
ceive some love, some tenderness, some vir- 
tue; but the rough and untutored honesty 
of truth compels us to say, that along with 
all this, there are at times mingled the bit- 
terness of invective, the growlings of dis- 
content, the harpings of peevishness and 
animosity, and all that train of angry, sus- 
picious, and discordant feelings, which im- 
bitter the heart of man, and make the reality 
of human life a very sober affair indeed, 
when compared with the high colouring of 
romance, and the sentimental extravagance 
of poetry. 

Now, what do we make of all this? We 
infer, that however much we may love per- 
fection, and aspire after it, yet there is some 
want, some disease in the constitution of 
man, which prevents his attainment of it — 
that there is a feebleness of principle about 
him — that the energy of his practice does 
not correspond to the fair promises of his 
fancy ; and however much he may delight 
in an ideal scene of virtue and moral excel- 
lence, there is some lurking malignity in his 
constitution, which, without the operation 
of that mighty power revealed to us in the 
Gospel, makes it vain to wish, and hopeless 
to aspire after it. 



X.] 



ON THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 



429 



SERMON X. 
On the Christian Sabbath. 
"And lie said unto them, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." — Mark ii. 27. 



The first recommendation of the Sabbath 
is the place which it occupies in the deca- 
logue. There was much of Jewish obser- 
vancy swept away with the ruin of the na- 
tional institutions. There was much of it 
designed for a temporary purpose, and 
which fell into disuse among the worship- 
pers of God after that purpose was accom- 
plished. A Christian of the present day, 
looks upon many of the most solemn ser- 
vices of Judaism in no other light than as 
fragments of a perishable ritual — nor does 
he ever think, that upon himself they have 
any weight of personal obligation. But this 
does not hold true of all the duties and all 
the services of Judaism. There is a broad 
line of distinction between that part of it 
which is now broken up, and that part of it 
which still retains all the authority of a per- 
petual and immutable law. Point us out a 
single religious observance of the Hebrews 
that is now done away, and we are able to 
say of it, and of all the others which have 
experienced a similar termination, that they, 
every one of them, lie without the compass 
of the ten commandments. They have no 
place whatever in that great record of duty 
which was graven on tables of stone, and 
placed within the holy of holies, under the 
mercy-seat. Now, how does the law of the 
Sabbath stand as to this particular ? Does it 
lie within or without a limit so tangible, and 
forming so distinct and so noticeable a line 
of demarcation ? We see it then standing 
within this record, of which all the other 
duties are of such general and such imper- 
ishable obligation. We meet with it in the 
interior of that hallowed ground, of which 
every other part is so sacred and so inviola- 
ble. We perceive it occupying its own con- 
spicuous place in that register of duties, all 
of which have the substance and the irrevo- 
cable permanency of moral principle. On 
reading over the other articles of this me- 
morable code, we see all of them stamped 
with such enduring characters of obligation, 
as no time can wear away; and the law of 
the Sabbath taking its station in the midst 
of them, and enshrined on each side of it 
among the immutabilities of truth, and jus- 
tice, and piety. It is true, that much of 
Judaism has now fallen into desuetude, and 
that many of its dearest and most distin- 
guished solemnities are now regarded in no 
other light than as the obsolete and repealed 
observances of an antiquated ritual. But it 
is worthy of being well observed that the 
whole of this work of demolition took place 



around and without the line of demarcation. 
We see no attempt whatever to violate the 
sanctity of the ground which this line en- 
closes. We no where see any express or 
recorded incursion upon any one of the ob- 
servances of the decalogue. We perceive 
an Apostle in the New Testament making 
his allusion to the fifth of these observances, 
and calling it the first commandment with 
promise ; and by the very notice he bestows 
on the arrangement of the duties, are we 
given to understand, that no attempt had 
been made to disturb their order, or to de- 
pose any one of them from the place which 
had been assigned to it. We should count 
it an experiment of the most fearful audaci- 
ty, without the intimation of any act of re- 
peal passed in the high legislature of hea- 
ven, to fly in the face of that Sabbath law, 
which stands enrolled among the items of 
so notable and so illustrious a document; 
and nothing short of a formal and absolute 
recallment can ever tempt us to think, that 
the new dispensation of the Gospel has 
created so much as one vacancy in that 
register of duties, which bears upon the 
aspect of its whole history the impress of a 
revealed standard that is unalienable and 
everlasting. We cannot give up one article 
in that series of enactments which, in every 
one age of the Christian world, has been 
revealed as a code, not of ceremonial but 
of moral law. We cannot consent, but on 
the ground of some resistless and overbear- 
ing argument, to the mutilation of the in- 
tegrity of this venerable record. We see 
throughout the whole line of the Jewish 
history, that it stood separate and alone; 
and that free from all the marks of national 
or local peculiarity, it bore upon it none of 
the frailty of the other institutions, but has 
been preserved and handed down to us an 
unchanged standard of duty, for all genera- 
tions. We see, at the very commencement 
of the Mosaic dispensation how God him- 
self thought fit to signalize it; for, from the 
place where he stood, did he proclaim the 
ten commandments of the law, in the hear- 
ing of the assembled multitude; while every 
other enactment, whether moral or cere- 
monial, was conveyed to the knowledge of 
the people, through the medium of a human 
legislator. And we should feel that, in de- 
throning any one of the perceptive imposi- 
tions of the decalogue from its authority 
over our practice, we were bidding defiance 
to the declared will of the Eternal; and re- 
sisting a voice which sounds as loudly and 



430 



ON THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 



[SERM. 



as impressively to our conscience, as the 
one that issued in thunder from the flaming 
top of Sinai, and scattered dismay among 
the thousands of Israel. 

But, secondly, in the practice of the 
Christian world, the Sabbath has been 
moved forward by one day ; and the re- 
membrance to which it is now consecrated, 
is a different one from that of the creation 
of the world. For this change we can find 
no positive enactment ; but we can quote 
the uncontrolled observation of it down 
from the period of the apostolic age. We 
are sure that a practice so early and so 
universal, could not have been introduced 
without the sanction of Heaven's inspired 
messengers. And, mark the limit of that 
liberty which has been taken with the 
fourth commandment. It amounts to no- 
thing more than the circumstantial change 
of a day. Had the early Christians felt 
themselves warranted to take more liberty, 
they would have taken it ; for then was the 
time when Christianity took its determi- 
nate movement away from the practices of 
the old dispensation, and established all its 
distinctions as a religion of principle, and a 
religion of spiritual character. But widely 
as the one religion departed from the other, 
there never, in any one age of the church, 
has been a departure from the observance 
of a Sabbath, appropriated to the more so- 
lemn and peculiar exercises of piety. The 
change in the day goes to prove that Chris- 
tianity is not a religion of mere days. But 
while it has abandoned one particular day, 
you find it transferring itself to another; and 
in the choice of that other it is guided by 
the affecting remembrance of an event, the 
contemplation of which is fitted to strength- 
en the faith, and to refresh the piety, and 
to waken the best and most religious feel- 
ings of those who are spiritually engaged 
in it. It commemorates the rise of the 
crucified Saviour from the grave — of him 
who is the first fruits of them who slept — 
of him who by that Spirit which is com- 
mitted to him, raises all those who are dead 
in tresspasses and sins, to newness of life — 
of him who is the great agent of Heaven 
for repairing all the disorders and all the 
deformities of the moral world — of him by 
whom, as the word of God, the universe 
was at first created, but who has since 
earned a more enduring title to the memory 
of Christians, by taking upon him that 
great scheme, in virtue of which, there are 
to emerge out of this ruined and rebellious 
province, a new heaven and a new earth, 
wherein dwelleth righteousness. At the 
first creation of the world, the Spirit moved 
over the turbulence of its confused and jar- 
ring elements, and awoke them all to or- 
der and to harmony. When Adam fell, 
we know not what precise mischief it in- 
flicted on the material world ; but we know 



that the moral world went back again into 
a wild chaos of dark and disorderly rebel- 
lion ; and the heart of man lost its obe- 
dience to the attractive influences of that 
great principle which can alone subdue it 
into harmonious accordancy with the law 
of God ; and the resurrection of Christ 
from the grave was a mighty and essential 
step in the counsels of heaven for quelling 
all the violence of this elementary war; 
" for unless I go away, the comforter can- 
not come ; but if I go to my Father, I shall 
send him." And from the place which he 
now occupies, does the Spirit come down 
at the commission of the exalted Saviour, 
and he moves on the face of this spiritual 
chaos, and is ever and anon reclaiming 
some portion of a moral and renovated em- 
pire from the rugged domain of a world 
lying in wickedness. And the time is yet 
to come when this ever-renovating Spirit 
shall fulfil its conclusive triumph, by spread- 
ing an entire aspect of worth, and piety, 
and moral loveliness over the wide extent 
of a now sinful creation. 

And thus it is, that while the day of Sab- 
bath has been changed, there is a most af- 
fecting remembrance which gives to the 
observation of Sabbath the full import and 
significancy of its original purpose — the 
remembrance of a new creation emerging 
from an old one— the animating view of 
life and immortality rising in splendour 
from the corruption of the grave — the con- 
templation of an ascended Saviour, who 
pours the promise of the Father on all his 
believing disciples — and working in them 
by the Spirit the graces of the new creature, 
prepares them for a welcome entrance into 
those regions, where sin is unknown, and 
where death is swallowed up in victory. 

But, thirdly, in addition to the slight cir- 
cumstantial change which has been made 
upon the Sabbath, and which we are sure 
no honest and enlightened Christian can 
ever construe into an entire and absolute 
repeal of the whole institution — there is a 
general change affecting every one of the 
ten commandments, but which was never 
so well understood till the new dispensa- 
tion was fully and fairly ushered into the 
world. 

We do not mean to say, that the wor- 
thies of the Old Testament were utter 
strangers to that doctrine of grace on 
which the Spirit of God, working in larger 
measure on the minds of the Apostles, from 
the day of Pentecost, has poured so clear 
and so celestial a splendour. We believe 
that many Jews were, under the shadow of 
their types and their sacrifices, trained to 
the faith, and the humility, and the affec- 
tionate obedience of creatures who knew 
themselves to be incapable of perfect con- 
formity to the law of God— and that, in 
the act of serving him. they stood on es- 



ON THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 



431 



sentially the same footing of mercy to 
pardon and grace to help in the time of 
need, on which a spiritual Christian of the 
day now feels himself to be so firmly and 
so conclusively established. The change 
we are alluding to, then, did not take place 
at the first settlement of the new dispensa- 
tion. It only came out at that time into 
more distinct exhibition ; and it consists in 
this; that whereas the direct and natural 
way of taking up the promulgated law of 
God, is to take it up as a law of works, and 
to labour at the performance of it on the 
understood condition of " This do, and ye 
shall live" — and as this condition has not 
been fulfilled by a single son or daughter 
of the species, then, unless some new ar- 
rangement of the matter between God and 
man had been entered into, life was forfeit- 
ed by every one of us, and we should just 
have been what the New Testament tells 
us we actually are, anterior to our recep- 
tion of the Gospel, the children of wrath, 
and under the full operation of the sen- 
tence, that " the soul which sinneth it shall 
die." Now, it would lead us away from 
our subject into a most interminable ex- 
cursion, did we say all that might be perti- 
nently and substantially said on the precise 
turn which the Gospel has given to the 
obligation of the law. Eternal life is no 
longer the wages of perfect obedience. It 
is the gift of God through Jesus Christ our 
Lord. The man who has faith to perceive 
the reality of this gift, lays hold of it, and 
rejoices in all the enlargement of conscious 
forgiveness, and in all the cordialities of a 
secure and confident reconciliation, with 
the God whom he had offended. But this 
faith does not set him loose from any one 
of the duties of obedience. Had no other 
doctrine been proposed to the believer, than 
the single one of forgiveness through the 
redemption that is in the blood of Jesus, 
then we can conceive how the dawning of 
the Gospel faith might be a signal for the 
emancipation of the whole man from the 
restraints of moral obligation. But other 
doctrines have been proposed; and faith, 
which is neither more nor less than a re- 
liance on the divine testimony, gives an 
equally honest and welcome admission to 
all the particulars of that testimony. It 
embraces all the particulars of God's com- 
munication ; and such is the amplitude of 
its grasp, that though as a principle, it is 
single and undivided, and can be defined 
within the limits of a short sentence ; yet 
grant us the existence of this principle, and 
then you grant us room enough, and pro- 
vision enough for giving effect to every 
one of the lessons of revelation. When 
faith attaches itself to the doctine of recon- 
ciliation through Christ, it will make him 
who possesses it, to walk before God with- 
out fear. When faith attaches itself to the 



doctrine, that "without holiness no man 
can see God," it makes him who pos- 
sesses it, to "walk before God without 
fear, in righteousness and in holiness." 
When faith attaches itself to the doctrine 
that unless ye do such and such command- 
ments, ye shall not inherit the kingdom of 
God, it makes him who possesses it, feel 
as constraining an urgency of personal in- 
terest in the work of keeping these com- 
mandments, as if the old covenant of works 
had got up again, and he behooved to ply 
his assiduous task for the rewards of per- 
fect obedience. When faith attaches itself 
to the doctrine of every man receiving his 
award at the judgment-seat, according to 
the deeds done in the body, it makes him 
who possesses it just strive with as much 
earnestness to multiply good deeds — as if 
each performance done at the bidding of 
the Saviour, was a distinct addition to the 
treasure reserved for him in heaven. But 
faith does attach itself to every one of these 
doctrines, or it is no faith at all. It gives 
the homage of its reliance to each particu- 
lar of the law and the testimony. It clears 
its unfettered way from among the per- 
plexities of human arrangement ; and dis- 
owning every authority but that of the one 
master, it sits at his feet with the docility 
of a little child, and appropriates to its right 
influence every item of his communications. 
And thus it is, that the man who is in sim- 
plicity and in good faith a believer, while 
he rejoices all the day long in the sunshine 
of a countenance which he knows to be 
friendly to him, labours all the day long at 
his faithful and assiduous task of doing 
every thing to the glory of God. There is 
room enough in his enlarged heart for 
knowing, that while the one is his offered 
privilege, the other is his required duty — 
and free^as he is, from all the embroilments 
of a darkening speculation, he does not 
wait for the adjustment of any human con- 
troversy on the subject, but taking himself 
to his Bible, he both lives in all the security 
of the offered reconciliation, and without 
questioning the simple announcement of 
the Saviour, that "if ye love me, ye will 
keep my commandments," he also lives in 
all the diligence of one who is " steadfast 
and unmoveable, and always abounding in 
the work of the Lord." 

It is true, that there is a difference between 
being under the law, and under grace. But 
how does this difference affect the morality 
of a Christian 1 Let us take the deliverance 
of an Apostle upon the subject. " Shall we 
sin," says Paul, " because we are not under 
the law, but under grace? God forbid." 
Quite the contrary, for it is precisely be- 
cause we are under grace, that sin hath not 
dominion over us. We must shorten this 
explanation, and bring it to bear on the ob- 
servation of the Sabbath. The great interest 



432 



ON THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 



[SERM. 



of practical obedience is upheld under the 
dispensation of the Gospel, by all the securi- 
ties of positive and preceptive obligation. 
But more than this — there is such a change 
wrought by grace in the heait of every be- 
liever, that he not only understands the obli- 
gation, but is made cordially to acquiesce in it. 
There is such a revolution in his desires, that 
it is now his meat and drink to do the will of 
that God, against whom there existed within 
him the most stubborn and revolting en- 
mity. The man who by faith, now looks 
on God as his friend, will have no difficulty 
in understanding this change, for he feels 
it ; and there is not a believer on the face of 
the earth who does not, from the time of his 
becoming so, love that law which he afore- 
time violated. This law was at first graven 
on tables of stone, and held out for the go- 
vernment of a helpless and guilty race, who 
were both unable and unwilling to yield to 
it the loyalty of their obedience; and it 
therefore served to them for a ministry of 
condemnation. 

When the dispensation of grace was 
brought in, this law was not abrogated. 
One of the most illustrious exercises of the 
grace of God, consisted in his putting forth 
a device for securing the observance of his 
laws, and this device is neither more nor 
less than putting the law in our hearts, and 
writing it in our minds. On the change 
taking place from our being under the law, 
to our being under grace, the law, to use 
the language of the Bible, is taken down 
from the place it formerly occupied on 
tablets of stone, and from which it frowns 
upon us in all the wrath of its violated dig- 
nity ; and it is graven on the fleshly tablets 
of the heart — or, in other words, the man is 
endowed with a liking for that which he 
formerly rebelled against. And grant him 
possessed of the genuine principle of faith ; 
and there can be no doubt, that the spirit, 
true to his office, has been at work within 
him, and has given a new bent to his affec- 
tions, and has turned them to the love of 
those commandments which he aforetime 
hated and resisted, and has established in 
his bosom this omnipotent security for obe- 
dience, that the taste and the inclinations of 
the new creature are now upon his side; 
and as if carried forward by the spontaneous 
and inborn alacrity of a constitutional im- 
pulse, does the man who is thus trans- 
formed, and thus acted upon by that Spirit, 
for which he never ceases to pray, run with 
delight in the way of all the commandments. 

Now, we have already attempted to satisfy 
you, that there is no erasure of the fourth 
commandment from that lettered record of 
the law, which is met with in your Bibles, 
and where the institution of the Sabbath is 
graven as indelibly as any one of the un- 
changeable moralities among which it is 
situated. But by the new dispensation of 



the Gospel, this law is made to stand in 
another place. It is conveyed, as it were, 
from its old position, on a tablet of stone, 
and written in the characters of a living 
epistle on the tablet of a believer's heart. 
Now the question we have to put is, in this 
transference of the law from its old to its 
new repository, does any one of its articles 
fall away from it, and is lost, as it were, in 
the passage, by being loosened and detached 
from the other articles among which it was 
incorporated? We can specify some, at 
least, of the ten commandments, which have 
found their way safe and entire to the heart 
of him who has embraced the Gospel, and 
lives under the power of its purifying in- 
fluences. We are sure that such a man will 
have his supreme affections fastened upon 
God, and renouncing every idol, whether 
of wealth, or of ambition, or of vanity, that 
can dethrone the Father of his spirit from 
his rightful ascendency, he will prefer no 
one object, of regard, or of reverence before 
him. We are sure that such a man will be 
quite in earnest to have a right knowledge 
and conception of God — that the Being he 
worships may be the true God — and lest, by 
directing his homage to some false and dis- 
torted picture of his own fancy, he may 
incur all the guilt, and be carried away by 
all the delusion of him who falls down to a 
material image, in lowly and bending ado- 
ration. We are sure that such a man will 
do honour to the hallowed name of his 
Master, who is in heaven, and be sickened 
and appalled by that profaneness which is 
so current in many of ourcompanies. We 
are sure that such a man will revere his 
earthly parents, and will stand by them in 
the midst of their sinking infirmities ; and 
whether in the form of a declining father, 
or a widowed mother, who has thrown the 
whole burden of her dependence on the 
children who remain to her, we are sure 
that he will never turn a contemptuous ear 
to the feebleness of their entreating voice — 
but' will bid his proud and aspiring man- 
hood give up to their authority all its way- 
wardness, and all its tumultuous indepen- 
dence. We are quite sure, that in the heart 
of such a man, there is an aspiration of 
kindliness towards everything that breathes, 
and that the commandment, "Thou shalt 
not kill," carries in his bosom the widely 
extended import of thou shalt not conceive 
one purpose, nor carry against a single hu- 
man being, one rankling sentiment of ma- 
lignity. We are sure that such a man, far 
removed from all that is licentious in prac- 
tice, will recoil, even in the unseen solitude 
of thought, from all that is licentious in con- 
ception, and spurning away from the pure 
sanctuary of his heart every evil and unhal- 
lowed visitation, he will present to the ap- 
proving eye of Heaven, all the adornments 
of a spiritual temple, all the graces and all 



ON THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 



433 



the beauties of an unspotted offering. We 
are sure that such a man, with a hand un- 
soiled by any one of the gains of injustice, 
will with all the sensitiveness of high-minded 
and honourable principle, keep himself as 
nobly aloof from substantial as from literal 
dishonesty. He will feel superior to every 
one of those tolerated artifices, and those 
practical disguises, which, throughout the 
great mass of mercantile society, have so 
hardened and so worn down the con- 
sciences of those, who, for years, have been 
speeding and bustling their way amongst a 
variety of manifold transactions — and in the 
high walk of simplicity and godly sincerity, 
will he carry along with him the impress 
of one of the peculiar people, amid all the 
legalized fraudulency of a selfish and un- 
principled generation. We are quite sure 
that such a man, seeing he had put on the 
deeds of the new creature, would never 
suffer the burning infamy of a lie to rest 
upon him. All that was within him, and 
about him, would be clear as the ethereal 
firmament. The wiles of a deceitful policy 
would be utterly unknown to him. The 
openness and the ingenuousness of truth, 
would sit upon his forehead, and his every 
utterance bear upon it as decided a stamp 
of authority, as if shielded by a solemn ap- 
peal to God and to the judgment-seat. And, 
lastly, we are quite sure that such a man 
could not breathe a single avaricious desire 
after the substance of another. His heart 
is set on another treasure. He has entered 
the service of another master than the mam- 
mon of unrighteousness. His affections have 
settled on a more enduring substance. With 
the eye of faith, he looks to heaven, and to 
its unfading and unperishable riches ; and 
all the splendours of this world's vain and 
empty magnificence, sink into worthless- 
ness before them. He can eye the golden 
career of his more prosperous neighbours, 
without one wistful sentiment either of co- 
vetousness or of envy; and feels not the 
meanness and the hardships of his humbler 
condition, amid the tranquillities of a heart 
that is cherishing a better prospect, and re- 
posing on the sure anticipation of a happier 
and more enduring home. 

Well, then, in the heart of this man, of 
whom we suppose nothing more than that 
he has drunk in the genius of our better 
dispensation, we find graven in the most 
legible and distinct characters, nine of the 
commandments. W e meet with all the ten 
in the letter of the Old Testament, and we 
find nine out of these ten in a state of most 
vigorous and entire operation, under the 
spirit of the New Testament. What has 
become of the fourth commandment ? Has 
it sunk and disappeared under the stormy 
vicissitudes of that middle passage, through 
which all the rest have found their way, 
from the tablets of a literal inscription, and 
31 



have gotten their secure and inviolable lodg- 
ment within the tablet of a Christian heart 1 
If we look into that heart, do we meet with 
no trace of the commandment we are in 
quest of ? Will you tell us, that the law 
of the Sabbath is erased, we will not say 
from the remembrance, but from the affec- 
tion of any one of the actual Christians by 
whom you are surrounded 1 Has it left be- 
hind it a vacancy in that spiritual tablet 
which is graven by the Spirit of God, when 
he writes the law in the believer's heart, 
and puts it into his mind ? This is a ques- 
tion of observation — and speaking from our 
own observation, we never, in the whole 
round of it, met with a man, drawn by the 
cords of love to the doing of the other com- 
mandments, and carrying in his heart either 
a distaste or an indifference for the fourth 
of them ? We may have seen men high in 
honour, and earning by their integrity the 
rewards of an unsullied reputation amongst 
their fellow-citizens, carrying a visible con- 
tempt for the Sabbath law throughout the 
whole line of their Sabbath-history— but 
all the truth and all the justice of these 
men are such constitutional virtues as may 
exist in a character which owns not and 
feels not the power of godliness; and sure 
we are that wanting this power, several 
of the other commandments can be speci- 
fied, to which they are as utter strangers 
as to the commandment of the seventh 
day. We repeat it, therefore, that if you 
grant us a man who bears about with him 
in his bosom, a warm and conscientious at- 
tachment to all the articles of the decalogue 
but this one, before we look at him, we say 
with confidence, that search him, and both 
in his heart and in his practice, this one is 
to be found ; and that we shall not fail to 
meet the Sabbath law as firmly established 
as any other within the secrecies of his bo- 
som, and standing out as conspicuously on 
the front of his external observations. We 
never, in the whole course of our recollec- 
tions, met with a Christian friend, who bore 
upon his character every other evidence of 
the Spirit's operation, who did not remem- 
ber the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. We 
appeal to the memory of all the worthies 
who are now lying in their graves, that, 
eminent as they were in every other grace 
and accomplishment of the new creature, 
the religiousness of their Sabbath-day shone 
with an equal lustre amid the fine assem- 
blage of virtues which adorn them. In every 
Christian household, it will be found, that 
the discipline of a well-ordered Sabbath is 
never forgotten amongst the other lessons 
of a Christian education— and we appeal to 
every individual who now hears us, and 
who carries the remembrance in his bosom 
of a father's worth, and a father's piety, if 
on the coming round of the seventh day, an 
air of peculiar sacredness did not spread it- 



434 



ON THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 



[SERM. 



self over that mansion where he drew his 
first breath, and was taught to repeat his 
infant hymn, and lisp his infant prayer. 
Rest assured, that a Christian, having the 
love of God written in his heart, and deny- 
ing the Sabbath a place in its affections, is 
an anomaly that is no where to be found. 
Every Sabbath image, and every Sabbath 
circumstance, is dear to him. He loves the 
quietness of that hallowed morn. He loves 
the church-bell sound, which summons him 
to the house of prayer. He loves to join the 
chorus of devotion, and to sit and listen to 
that voice of persuasion which is lifted in 
the hearing of an assembled multitude. He 
loves the retirement of this day from the 
din of worldly business, and the inroads of 
worldly men. He loves the leisure it brings 
along with it — and sweet to his soul is the 
exercise of that hallowed hour, when there 
is no eye to witness him but the eye of 
heaven — and when in solemn audience with 
the Father, who seeth him in secret, he can, 
on the wings of celestial contemplation, 
leave all the cares, and all the vexations, 
and all the secularises of an alienated world 
behind him. O, how is it possible, that a 
man can be under the dominion of a prin- 
ciple of piety, who does not love that day 
which brings round to piety its most pre- 
cious opportunities? How is it possible, 
that he can wear the character of a religious 
being, if the very day which offers him the 
freest time for the lessons and the exercises 
of religion, is spent in other exercises, or 
idly suffered to roll over his head in no ex- 
ercise at all ? How is it possible, that there 
can exist within him any honest care of his 
eternity, if the best season for carrying on, 
without disturbance, the preparations of 
eternity, pass away in disgust and in weari- 
ness? How is it possible, with all the ten- 
derness of his instinctive nature for the 
members of his family, that there can be 
one particle of tenderness for their souls, if 
this day run on at large from all the re- 
straints of Christian discipline, and careless 
parents, giving themselves up to neglect and 
to indolence, make no effort to reclaim the 
wild ignorance of children, untaught and 
untrained to that wisdom which is unto sal- 
vation? The thing is not to be conceived; 
and upon the strength of all these impossi- 
bles, do we assert, that every real Christian 
has the love of the Sabbath engraven on 
the tablet of the inner man — that if you had 
a window to his bosom, you would there 
see the fourth commandment filling up as 
large a space of that epistle, which is writ- 
ten not with ink, but with the Spirit of the 
living God, as it does on the decalogue of 
Moses — that this is not the peculiarity of 
some accidental Christians, meeting our ob- 
servation on some random walk over the 
face of Christian society — that it is the con- 
stant and universal attribute of all Chris- 



tians — that in every age of the church the 
love of the Sabbath, and an honest delight 
in all its pious and profitable observances, 
have ever stood out among the visible linea- 
ments of the new creature in Jesus Christ % 
our Lord — that the great Spirit, whose of 
fice it is to inscribe the law of God on the 
hearts of those whose sins are forgiven 
them, and whom he has admitted into the 
privileges of his new and his better cove- 
nant, has never omitted, in a single in- 
stance, to make the remembrance of the 
Sabbath one of the most conspicuous, and 
one of the most indelible articles of that in- 
scription. And thus has it happened, that 
without any statutory enactment in the 
whole compass of the New Testament upon 
the subject — without any formal setting 
forth of Sabbath Observation, or any laying 
down of a Sabbath ceremonial, the grave, 
the solemn, the regular, and with all this, 
the affectionate keeping of this distinguished 
day, has come down to us through a series 
of eighteen centuries, and may be recog- 
nised to this hour as the ever-present badge 
of every Christian individual; and as the 
great index and palladium of religion in 
every Christian land. 

We shall just say one thing more upon 
this subject at present. What now becomes 
of him, who, like a special pleader, with a 
statute-book in his hand, thinks that the 
New Testament has set him at large from 
every other style of Sabbath observation, 
because he cannot find in it any laying 
down of Sabbath observances? He will 
not own the force of any obligation till it 
be shown to him as one of the clauses in the 
bond. His constant appeal is to the bond. 
He will not exceed, by a single inch, the 
literalities of the bond. He will square his 
every service, and his every offering by the 
bond; and when he is charged with any 
one of the misdemeanours of Sabbath-break- 
ing, he will tell you that it is not specified 
in the bond. Why, my brethren, if the 
bond be what he stands upon, he just 
wakens up against himself the old ministry 
of condemnation. If it be on the just and 
even footing of the bond that he chooses to 
have his exactly literal dealings with God, 
on this footing God will enter into judg- 
ment with him ; and soon, and very soon, 
will he convict him of his glaring deficien- 
cies from his own favourite standard, the 
bond. Ah, my brethren, when a Christian 
serves his reconciled Father, it is the ser- 
vice of a liberal and spontaneous attach- 
ment. His aim is to please him and to glo- 
rify him to the uttermost; and he is never 
more delighted than when it is in his power 
to offer the God whom he loves, some of 
those substantial testimonies of affection 
which no jealousy can extort by any of its 
enactments, and the letter of no law is able 
to embody in any of its descriptions. With 



ON THE DOCTRINE OF PREDESTINATION. 435 



tt] 

such a spirit, and such a cordiality within, 
we cannot doubt for a moment the delight 
which such a man will take in the Sabbath, 
and how dear to his bosom will the affect- 
ing remembrance be to which it is conse- 
crated, and how diligently he will cultivate 
its every hour to the purpose for which it 
was made — and how, knowing that the 
Sabbath was made for man, he will earn- 
estly and honestly give himself to the task 
of realizing all its usefulness to himself and 
to his family. And do you think, that God 
will not see this ? Do you think, that he 
will stand in need of any literal specifica- 
tions by which he may mark the character 



of this man on the day of retribution ? Will 
he not be able to read that epistle which he 
himself has engraven on the fleshly tablets 
of his heart ? Will he not know his own 1 
Will he not recognise all the lineaments of 
that new creature, which has been fashioned 
by his own spirit — and on that day when 
the secrets of every heart are laid open, will 
not the Sabbath observations of an honest 
and affectionate believer, flowing, as they 
do, from the impulses of a love for that law 
which is written on his mind, be put down 
among those good deeds which shall be 
found to praise, and honour, and glory, at 
the solemn reckoning of the judgment seat. 



SERMON XI. 

On the Doctrine of Predestination. 

"And now I exhort you to be of good cheer : for there shall be no loss of any man's life among you, but 
of the ship. Paul said to the centurion and to the soldiers, Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be 
saved." — Acts xvii. 22, 31. 



The comparison of these two verses 
lands us in what may appear to many to be 
a very dark and unprofitabe speculation. 
Now, our object in setting up this compari- 
son, is not to foster in any of you a tendency 
to meddle with matters too high for us ; but 
to protect you against the practical mischief 
of such a tendency. You have all heard of 
the doctrine of predestination. It has long 
been a settled article of our church. And 
there must be a sad deal of evasion and of 
unfair handling with particular passages, 
to get free of the evidence which we find 
for it in the Bible. And independently of 
Scripture altogether, the denial of this doc- 
trine brings a number of monstrous con- 
ceptions along with it. It supposes God to 
make a world, and not to reserve in his 
own hand the management of its concerns. 
Though it should concede to him an abso- 
lute sovereignty over all matter, it deposes 
him from his sovereignty over the region 
of created minds, that far more dignified 
and interesting portion of his works. The 
greatest events of the history of the uni- 
verse, are those which are brought about 
by the agency of willing and intelligent be- 
ings; and the enemies of the doctrine in- 
vest every one of these beings with some 
sovereign and independent principle of 
freedom, in virtue of which it may be as- 
serted of this whole class of events, that 
they happened, not because they were or- 
dained of God, but because the creatures 
of God, by their own uncontrolled power, 
brought them into existence. At this rate, 
even he to whom we give the attribute of 
omniscience, is not able to say at this mo- 
ment, what shall be the fortune or the fate 



of any individual — and the whole train of 
future history is left to the wildness of ac- 
cident. All this carries along with it so 
complete a dethronement of God — it is 
bringing his creation under the dominion 
of so many nameless and undeterminable 
contingencies — it is taking the world and 
the current of its history so entirely out 
of the hands of him who formed it — it is 
withal so opposite to what obtains in every 
other field of observation, where, instead 
of the lawlessness of chance, we shall find 
that the more we attend, the more we per- 
ceive of a certain necessary and establish- 
ed order — that from these and other con- 
siderations which might be stated, the 
doctrine in question, in addition to the tes- 
timonies which we find for it in the Bible, 
is at this moment receiving a very general 
support from the speculations of infidel as 
well as Christian philosophers. 

Assenting, as we do, to this doctrine, we 
state it as our conviction, that God could 
point the finger of his omniscience to every 
one individual amongst us, and tell what 
shall be the fate of each, and the place of 
each, and the state of suffering or enjoy- 
ment of each at any one period of futurity, 
however distant. Well does he know those 
of us who are vessels of wrath fitted for de- 
struction, and those of us whom he has 
predestinated to be conformed to the image 
of his dear Son, and to be rendered meet 
for the inheritance. We are not saying, 
that we, or that any of you could so cluster 
and arrange the two sets of individuals. 
This is one of the secret things which be- 
long to God. It is not our duty to be alto- 
gether silent about the doctrine of predes- 



436 



ON THE DOCTRINE OF PREDESTINATION. 



[sERM. 



tination ; for the Bible is not silent about it, 
and it is our duty to promulgate and to 
hold up our testimony for all that we find 
there. But certain it is, that the doctrine 
has been so injudiciously meddled with — 
it has tempted so many ingenious and spe- 
culative men to transgress the limits of 
Scripture— it has engendered so much pre- 
sumption among some, and so much de- 
spondency among others — it has been so 
much abused to the mischief of practical 
Christianity, that it were well for us all, 
could we carefully draw the line between 
the secret things which belong to God, and 
the things which are revealed, and belong 
to us and to our children. 

"With this view, we shall, in the first 
place, lay before you the observations 
which are suggested by the immediate his- 
tory in the passage now submitted to you. 
And, in the second place, we shall attempt 
to evince its application to us of the pre- 
sent day, and how far it should carry an 
influence over the concerns of practical 
godliness. 

I. In the 22d verse Paul announces in 
absolute terms, that all the men of the ship 
were to be saved. He had been favoured 
with this intimation from the mouth of an 
angel. It was the absolute purpose of God, 
and no obstacle whatever could prevent its 
accomplishment. To him belongs that know- 
ledge which sees every thing, and that 
power which determines every thing ; and 
he could say to his prophet, " These men 
will certainly be saved." Compare this 
with what we have in the 31st verse. By 
this time the sailors had given up all hope 
of the safety of the vessel. They had toiled, 
as they thought, in vain — and in despair of 
doing any good, they ceased from working 
the ship, and resolved to abandon her. 
With this view they let down the boat to 
try the chance of deliverance for them- 
selves, and leave the passengers to perish. 
Upon this Paul, though his mind had been 
previously assured, by an intimation from 
the foreknowledge and predestination of 
God, that there should be no loss of men's 
lives, put on all the appearance of earnest- 
ness and urgency — and who can doubt, 
that he really felt this earnestness at the 
moment of his speaking to the centurion, 
when he told him, that unless these men 
should abide in the ship, they would not 
be saved ? He had before told them, in the 
most unrestricted terms, that they would 
be saved. But this does not restrain his 
practical urgency now — and the urgency 
of Paul gave an alarm and a promptitude 
to the mind of the centurion — and the cen- 
turion ordered his soldiers to cut the ropes 
which fastened the boat to the vessel, that 
the sailors, deprived of this mode of escape, 
might be forcibly detained among them — 
and the seldiers obeyed — and the sailors 



were kept on board, and rendered the full 
benefit of their seamanship and their exer- 
tions. They did what other passengers 
could not do. They lightened the ship. 
They took up the anchors. They loosed 
the rudder-bands. They hoisted up the 
mainsail to the wind — and the upshot of 
this long intermediate process, with all its 
steps, was, that the men escaped safe to the 
land, and the decree of God was accom- 
plished. 

Now, in the first instance, it was true, in 
the most absolute sense of the word, that 
these men were to be saved. And in the 
second instance, it was no less true, that 
unless the sailors abode in the ship, they 
could not be saved. And the terms of this 
apparent contradiction admit of a very ob- 
vious reconciliation on the known truth, 
that God worketh by instruments. He may 
carry every one purpose of his into imme- 
diate accomplishment by the direct energy 
of his own hands. But in point of fact, 
this is not his general way of proceeding. 
He chooses rather to arrive at the accom- 
plishment of many of his objects by a suc- 
cession of steps, or by the concurrence of one 
or more visible instruments, which require 
time for their operation. This is a truth to 
which all nature and all experience lend 
their testimony. It was his purpose that, 
at the moment I am now addressing you, 
there should be light over the face of the 
country, and this purpose he accomplishes 
by the instrumentality of the sun. There 
is a time coming, when light shall be fur- 
nished out to us in another way — when 
there shall be no need either of the sun or 
the moon to lighten the city of our habita- 
tion—but when the glory of God shall 
lighten it, and the Lamb shall be the light 
thereof. But this is not the way at pre- 
sent, and, therefore, it is both true, that it 
was God's purpose there should be light 
over us and around us at this moment, and 
that unless the sun had risen upon us this 
morning, there would have been no such 
light. It may be the purpose of God to 
bless the succeeding year with a plentiful 
harvest. He could accomplish this pur- 
pose in two ways. He could make the 
ripened corn start into existence by a sin- 
gle word of his power. But this is not the 
actual way in which he carries such de- 
signs into accomplishment. He does it by 
the co-operation of many visible instru- 
ments. It is true, he can pour abundance 
among us even in the midst of adverse 
weather and unfavourable seasons. But he 
actually does it by means of favourable 
weather and favourable seasons. It is not 
in spite of bad weather that we receive 
from his hands the blessings of plenty 
— hut in consequence of good weather — 
sunshine and shower succeeding each 
other in fit proportion— calm to prevent the 



ON THE DOCTRINE OF PREDESTINATION. 437 



&1 

shaking of the corn, and wind in sufficient 
quantity to winnow it, and make a prospe- 
rous ingathering. Should it be the purpose 
of God to give a plentiful harvest to us next 
year, it will certainly happen, and yet it 
may be no less true, that unless such wea- 
ther come, we shall have no such plentiful 
harvest. God who appoints the end, orders 
and presides over the whole series of means 
which lead to it. These visible causes are 
all in his hand. They are the instruments 
of his power. The elements are his, and he 
can either restrain their violence, or let 
them loose in fury upon the world. 

Now, look upon human beings as the in- 
struments of his pleasure, and you have an 
equally complete explanation of the passage 
before us. You will be made to understand 
how it is true, that it was God's absolute 
purpose that the men of the vessel should 
be saved, and how it is equally true, that 
unless the sailors abode in the ship, they 
could not be saved. Why, the same God 
who determined the end, gave certain effi- 
cacy to the means which he himself had 
instituted and set agoing for the accomplish- 
ment of the end. It does not at all affect 
the certainty of God's influence over these 
means, that in addition to wind, and water, 
and material elements, there were also hu- 
man beings employed as instruments for 
carrying his purpose into execution. It is 
expressly said of God, not only that he still- 
eth the waves of the sea, but that he also 
stilleth the tumults of the people, and that 
he can turn the heart of man as the rivers 
of water, turning it whithersoever he will. 
He appoints the end, and it does not at all 
lessen the sure and absolute nature of the 
appointment, that he brings it about by a 
long succession of means, provided that it 
is his power which gives effect to every 
step in the progress and operation of these 
means. Now, in the case before us, there 
was just such a progress as we pointed out 
in the case of a favourable harvest. He had 
determined, that all the men of the vessel 
should be saved ; but agreeably to the me- 
thod of his administration in other cases, 
he brought it about by the operation of in- 
struments. He did not save them against 
the use of instruments, but he did it by the 
use of instruments. The instruments he 
employed were men. Paul speaking to the 
centurion — the centurion ordering the sol- 
diers to cut the ropes, and let the boat away 
from the vessel — the sailors obliged to work 
for their own safety — these were the instru- 
ments of God, and he had as much com- 
mand over them as of any others he has 
created. He brought about the saving of 
the men by means of those instruments, as 
certainly as he brings about a good harvest 
by the instrument of favourable weather, 
and congenial seasons. He is as much 
master of the human heart, and its determi- 



nations, as he is of the elements. He reigns 
in the mind of man, and can turn its pur- 
poses in any way that suits his purposes. 
He made Paul speak. He made the centu- 
rion listen and be impressed by it. He 
made the soldiers obey. He made the sai- 
lors exert themselves. The conditional as- 
sertion of the 31st verse was true ; but he 
made the assertion serve the purpose for 
which it was uttered. He overruled the 
condition, and brought about the fulfilment 
of the absolute prophecy in the 22d verse. 
The whole of this process was as com- 
pletely overruled by him as any other pro- 
cess in nature — and in virtue too of the very 
same power by which he can cause the 
wind of heaven to fly loose upon the world, 
make the rain descend, the corn ripen into 
harvest, and all the blessings of plenty sit in 
profusion over a happy and a favoured land. 

There is no inconsistency, then, between 
these verses. God says in one of them, by the 
mouth of Paul, that these men were certainly 
to be saved. And Paul says in the other 
of these verses, that unless the centurion 
and soldiers were to do so and so, they 
should not be saved. In one of the verses, 
it is made to be the certain and unfailing 
appointment of God. In the other, it is 
made to. depend on the centurion. There 
is no difficulty in all this, if you would just 
consider, that God, who made the end cer- 
tain, made the means certain also. It is 
true, that the end was certainly to happen, 
and it is as true that the end would not 
happen without the means — but God se- 
cured the happening of both, and so gives 
sureness and consistency to the passage be- 
fore us. 

Now, it is worth while to attend here 
both to the conduct of Paul who gave the 
directions, and to the conduct of the centu- 
rion who obeyed them. Paul, who gave 
the directions, knew, in virtue of the reve- 
lation that was made to him some time be- 
fore, that the men were certainly to be 
saved, and yet this does not prevent him 
from urging them to the practical adoption 
of means for saving themselves. He knew 
that their being saved was a thing predesti- 
nated, and as sure as the decree of heaven 
could make it ; but he must likewise have 
known, that while it was God's counsel 
they should be saved, it was also God's 
will that they should be saved by the exer- 
tions of the sailors — that they were the in- 
struments he made choice of — that this was 
the way in which he wished it to be brought 
about ; and Paul had too high a reverence 
for the will of God, to decline the use of 
those practical expedients, which formed 
the likeliest way of carrying this will into 
effect. It is a very striking circumstance, 
that the same Paul who knew absolutely 
and unequivocally that the men were to be 
saved, could also say, and say with truth, 



438 



ON THE DOCTRINE OF PREDESTINATION. 



[SERM. 



that unless the sailors were detained in the 
elJp, they should not be saved. Both were 
true, and both were actually brought about. 
The thing was done by the appointment of 
God, and it was also done by a voluntary 
act on the part of the centurion and his sol- 
diers. Paul knew of the appointment, but 
he did not feel himself exempted by this 
knowledge, from the work of practically 
influencing the will of the people who were 
around him ; and the way in which he got 
them to act, was by bringing the urgency 
of a prevailing argument to bear upon them. 
He told them that their lives depended upon 
it. God put it into Paul's heart to make use 
of the argument, and he gave it that in- 
fluence over the hearts of those to whom it 
was addressed, that by the instrumentality 
of men, his purpose, conceived from eter- 
nity, and revealed beforehand to the Apos- 
tle, was carried forward to its accomplish- 
ment. 

And again, as the knowledge that they 
were to be saved, did not prevent Paul from 
giving directions to the centurion and sol- 
diers for saving themselves, neither did it 
prevent them from a practical obedience to 
these directions. It does not appear whether 
they actually, at this time, believed Paul to 
be a messenger of God — though it is likely, 
from the previous history of the^voyage, 
that they did. If they did not, then they 
acted as the great majority of men do, they 
acted as unconscious instruments for the 
execution of the divine purposes. But if 
they did believe Paul to be a prophet, it is 
highly striking to observe, that the know- 
ledge they had gotten from his mouth of 
their really and absolutely escaping with 
their lives, did not slacken their utmost de- 
gree of activity in the business of working 
for the preservation of their lives, at a bid- 
ding from the mouth of the same prophet. 
He is a prophet from God — and whatever 
he says must be true. He tells us that we 
are to escape with our lives — let us believe 
this and rejoice in it. But he. also tells us, 
that unless we do certain things, we shall 
not escape with our lives — let us believe 
this also, and do these things. A fine ex- 
ample, on the one hand, of their faithful 
dependence on his declarations, and, on the 
other, of their practical obedience to his re- 
quirements. If one were to judge by the 
prosperous result of the whole business, 
the Avay in which the centurion and sol- 
diers were affected by the different revela- 
tions of Paul, was the very way which 
satisfied God — for it was rewarded with 
success, and issued both in the fulfilment of 
his decree, and the completion of their de- 
liverance. 

II. We now come to the second thing 
proposed, which was to evince the appli- 
cation of the passage to us of the present 
day — and how far it should carry an in- 



fluence over the concerns of practical god- 
liness. 

"We shall rejoice in the first instance, if 
the explanation we have now given, have 
the effect of clearing away any of those 
perplexities which throw a darkening cloud 
over the absolute and universal sovereignty 
of God. We are ready enough to concede 
to the Supreme Being the administration of 
the material world, and to put into his hand 
all the force of its mighty elements. But 
let us carry the commanding influence of 
Deity into the higher world of moral and 
intelligent beings. Let us not erect the 
will of the creature into an independent 
principle. Let us not conceive that the 
agency of man can bring about one single 
iota of deviation from the plans and the 
purposes of God ; or that he can be. thwart- 
ed and compelled to vary in a single case 
by the movement of any of those subordi- 
nnte beings whom he himself has created. 
There may be a diversity of operations, but 
it is God who worketh all in all. Look at 
the resolute and independent man, and you 
there see the purposes of the human mind 
entered upon with decision, and followed 
up by vigorous and successful exertion. 
But these only make up one diversity of 
God's operations. The will of man, active, 
and spontaneous, and fluctuating as it ap- 
pears to be, is an instrument in his hand — 
and he turns it at his pleasure — and he 
brings other instruments to act upon it — 
and he plies it with all its excitements— and 
he measures the force and proportion of 
each of them — and every step of every in- 
dividual receives as determinate a character 
from the hand of God, as every mile of a 
planet's orbit, or every gust of wind, or 
every wave of the sea, or every particle of 
flying dust, or every rivulet of flowing 
water. This power of God knows no ex- 
ceptions. It is absolute and unlimited, and 
while it embraces the vast, it carries its re- 
sistless influence to all the minute and un- 
noticed diversities of existence. It reigns 
and operates through all the secrecies of 
the inner man. It gives birth to every pur- 
pose. It gives impulse to. every desire. It 
gives shape and colour to every conception. 
It wields an entire ascendency over every 
attribute of the mind ; and the will, and the 
fancy, and the understanding, with all the 
countless variety of their hidden and fugi- 
tive operations, are submitted to it. It 
gives movement and direction through every 
one point in the line of our pilgrimage. 
At no one moment of time does it abandon 
us. It follows us to the hour of death, and 
it carries us to our place and our everlasting 
destiny in the region beyond it. It is true, 
that no one gets to heaven, but he, who by 
holiness, is meet for it. But the same power 
which carries us there, works in us the 
meetness. And if we are conformed to the 



XI.] 



ON THE DOCTRINE OF PREDESTINATION. 



439 



image of the Saviour, it is by the energy 
of the same predestinating God, whose good 
pleasure it is to give unto us the kingdom 
prepared for us before the foundation of 
the world. 

Thus it is that some are elected to ever- 
lasting life. This is an obvious doctrine 
of Scripture. The Bible brings it forward, 
and it is not for us, the interpreters of the 
Bible, to keep it back from you. God 
could, if it pleased him, read out, at this 
moment, the names of those in this congre- 
gation, who are ordained to eternal life, and 
are written in his book. In reference to 
their deliverance from shipwreck, he en- 
abled Paul to say of the whole ship's com- 
pany, that they were to be saved. In refer- 
ence to your deliverance from wrath and 
from punishment, he could reveal to us the 
names of the elect among you, and enable 
us to say of them that they are certainly to 
be saved. 

But again, the same God who ordains the 
end, ordains also the means which go be- 
fore it. In virtue of the end being ordained 
and made known to him, Paul could say 
that all the men's lives were to be saved. 
And in virtue of the means being ordained 
and made known to him, he could also say, 
that unless the sailors abode in the ship, 
they should not be saved. In the same 
manner, if the ordained end were made 
known to us, we could, perhaps, say of 
some individual among you, that you are 
certainly to be saved. And if the ordained 
means were made known to us, we could 
say, that unless you are rendered meet for 
the inheritance of the saints in light, you 
shall not be saved. Now, the ordination of 
the end, God has not been pleased to reveal 
to us. He has not told us who among you 
are to be saved, as he told Paul of the de- 
liverance of his ship's company. This is 
one of the secret things which belong to 
him, and we dare not meddle with it. But 
he has told us about the ordained means, 
and we know, through the medium of the 
Bible, that unless you do such and such 
things, you shall not be saved. This is one 
of the revealed things which belong to us, 
and with as great truth and practical ur- 
gency as Paul made use of, when he said 
to the centurion and soldiers, that unless 
these men abide in the ship ye shall not be 
saved, do we say to one and to all of you, 
unless ye repent ye shall not be saved — un- 
less ye do works meet for repentance, ye 
shall not be saved — unless ye believe the 
Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, ye shall 
not be saved — unless ye are born again, ye 
shall not be saved — unless the deeds done 
in your body be good deeds, and ye bring 
forth those fruits of righteousness which 
are by Jesus Christ to the praise and glory 
of God, ye shall not be saved. 

Mark the difference between the situation 



of Paul urging upon the people of the ship 
the immediate adoption of the only way by 
which their lives could be saved, and the 
situation of an ordinary minister urging it 
upon the people of his church, to take to 
that way of faith and repentance, by which 
alone they can save their souls from the 
wrath that is now abiding on them. Paul 
did know that the people were certainly to 
escape with their lives, and that did not 
prevent him from pressing upon them the 
measures which they ought to adopt for 
their preservation. Even, then, though a 
minister did know those of his people 
whose names are written in the book of 
life, that ought not to hinder him from 
pressing it upon them to lay hold of eter- 
nal life — to lay up their treasure in heaven 
— to labour for the meat that endureth — to 
follow after that holiness, without which 
no man shall see the Lord — to be strong in 
the faith, and such a faith too as availeth, 
even faith which worketh by love, and of 
which we may say, even those whom we 
assuredly know to be the chosen heirs of 
immortality, that unless this faith abideth 
in them, they shall not be saved. But it so 
happens, that we do not know who are, 
and who are not, the children of election. 
This is a secret thing belonging to God, 
and which is not imparted to us ; still it 
would be our part to say to those of whose 
final salvation we were assured, believe the 
Gospel, or you shall not be saved — repent, 
or you shall not be saved— purify yourselves, 
even as God is pure, or you shall not be 
saved. But we are not in possession of the 
secret — and how much more then does it 
lie upon us to ply with earnestness the fears 
and the consciences of our hearers, by those 
revealed things which God hath been pleas- 
ed to make known to us ? What ! if Paul, 
though assured by an angel from heaven 
of the final deliverance of this ship's com- 
pany, still persists in telling them, that if 
they leave certain things undone, their de- 
liverance will be impossible — shall we, ut- 
terly in the dark about the final state of a 
single hearer we are addressing, let down 
for a single instant the practical urgency 
of the New Testament ? 

The predestination of God respecting the 
final escape of Paul and his fellow-travel- 
lers from shipwreck, though made known 
to the Apostle, did not betray him into the 
indolence which is ascribed, and falsely 
ascribed, to the belief of this doctrine ; nor 
did it restrain him from spiriting on the 
people to the most strenuous and fatigui-ng 
exertions. And shall we, who only know 
in general that God does predestinate, but 
cannot carry it home with assurance to a 
single individual, convert this doctrine into 
a plea of indolence and security? Even 
should we see the mark of God upon their 
foreheads, it would be our duty to labour 



440 



ON THE DOCTRINE OF PREDESTINATION. 



[SERM. 



them with the necessity of doing those 
things, which, if left undone, will exclude 
from the kingdom of God. But, we make 
no such pretensions. We see no mark upon 
any of your foreheads. We possess no 
more than the Bible, and access through 
the Mediator to him, who, by his Spirit, can 
open our understandings to understand it. 
The revealed things which we find there 
belong to us, and we press them upon you 
— " Unless ye repent, ye shall all likewise 
perish." " If ye believe not in the Son of 
God, the wrath of God abideth on you." 
"Be not deceived, neither covetous, nor 
thieves, nor extortioners, nor drunkards, 
shall inherit the kingdom of God." " He 
who forsaketh not all, shall not be a disci- 
ple of Christ." "The fearful, and the un- 
believing, and the abominable, and all liars 
shall have their part in the lake which burn- 
etii with fire and brimstone." These are 
plain declarations, and apart from the doc- 
trine of predestination altogether, they 
ought, and if they are believed and listened 
to, they will have a practical influence upon 
you. We call upon you not to resist this 
influence, but to cherish it. If any of you 
are the children of election, it is by the 
right influence of revealed things upon your 
understandings and your consciences, that 
this secret thing will be brought to pass. 
Paul said as much to the centurion and the 
soldiers, as that if you do the things, I call 
upon you to do, you will certainly be saved. 
They did what he bade them, and the de- 
cree of God respecting their deliverance 
from shipwreck, a decree which Paul had 
the previous knowledge of, was accom- 
plished. We also feel ourselves warranted 
to say to one and to all of you, " Believe 
in the Lord Jesus Christ, and ye shall be 
saved." " Repent and be converted, and 
your sins shall be forgiven you." Return 
unto God, and he will be reconciled. If 
you do as we bid you, God's decree re- 
specting your deliverance from hell, a de- 
cree which we have not the previous know- 
ledge of, will be made known by its accom- 
plishment. 

Again, we call upon you, our hearers, to 
compare your situation with that of the 
centurion and the soldiers. They were 
told by a prophet that they were to be 
saved, and when that prophet told them 
what they were to do for the purpose of 
saving themselves, they obeyed him. They 
did not say, " O it is all predestinated, and 
we may give up our anxieties and do no- 
thing." They were just as strenuous and 
active, as if there had been no predestina- 
tion in the matter. Paul's previous assur- 
rance, that all was to end well, had no effect 
in lulling them to indolence. It did end 
well, not however without their exertions, 
but by their exertions. How much more 
does it lie upon you to enter with earnest- 



ness upon the business of doing. We can 
give you no assurance of its being the de- 
cree of God, that any of you shall be saved. 
But we can give you the assurance, that 
you will be saved, if you do such and such 
things. Surely, if the people whom Paul 
addressed, did not feel themselves exempt- 
ed by their knowledge of God's decree, 
from practically entering upon those mea- 
sures which carried forward its accom- 
plishment, you, who have no such know- 
ledge, must feel doubly impelled by the un- 
certainty which hangs over you, to the work 
of making your calling and your election 
sure. You know in general, that predes- 
tination is a doctrine of the Bible, but there 
is not one of you who can say of himself, 
that God has made known his decrees to 
me, and given me directly to understand, 
that I am the object of a blessed predesti- 
nation. This is one point of which you 
know nothing ; but there is another point 
of which you know something — and that is, 
if I believe, if I repent, if I be made like 
unto Christ, if I obtain the Holy Spirit to 
work in me a conformity to his image — and 
I am told, that I shall obtain it if I ask it — 
then by this I become an heir of life, and 
the decree of which I know nothing at the 
outset of my concern about salvation, will 
become more and more apparent to me as 
I advance in a meetness for heaven, and 
will, at length, become fully, and finally, 
and conclusively made known by its ac- 
complishment. I may suffer my curiosity 
to expatiate on the question, " Am I, or am 
I not, of the election of God ?" But my 
wisdom tells me that this is not the busi- 
ness on hand. It is not the matter which 
I am called on to do with at present. After 
Paul said to his companions, that it was 
quite indispensable to their safety that the 
sailors should be kept in the vessel, what 
did the centurion and his men do? Did 
they fall a speculating about the decrees ? 
Did they hug themselves in the confidence, 
that as their safety was a point sure and 
determined upon, they need to take no 
trouble at all in the concern ? O no ! No 
sooner did Paul give the word, than they 
acted upon it. They gave themselves up 
with all the promptitude of men whose 
lives were at stake, to the business on hand. 
They cut the ropes— they let go the boat — 
they kept in the sailors— and from the very 
first moment of Paul's address to them on 
the subject, all was bustling, and strenuous, 
and unremitting activity; till, by the un- 
wearied perseverance of those living and 
operative instruments, the decree of God 
was accomplished. Now, they were much 
better acquainted with the decree which 
respected them, than you are with the 
decree respecting you. They had the be- 
forehand knowledge of it, and will you be 
less active, or less strenuous, than they? 



XI.] 



Do, therefore, betake yourselves to the bu- 
siness on hand. Let our exhortations to 
embrace the free offer of the Gospel — to 
rely on Christ as your Saviour — to resolve 
against all your iniquities, and turn unto 
him— to ply the throne of grace for the 
strengthening influence of the Spirit, by 
which alorie you are enabled to die unto 
all sin, and live unto all righteousness — let 
this have an immediate, and a stirring, and 
a practical influence upon you. If you put 
this influence away from you, you are in a 
direct way now of proving what we tremble 
to think may be rendered clear and indis- 
putable at last, on the great day of the re- 
velation of hidden things, that you have 
neither part nor lot in the matter. Whatever 
the employment be which takes you up, 
and hinders you from entering immediately 
on the work of faith and repentance, it is 
an alarming symptom of your soul, that you 
are so taken up — and should the employ- 
ment be an idle dreaming, and amusing of 
yourselves with the decrees and counsels 
of heaven, it is not the less alarming. 

Some will spend their time in inquiries 
about the number of the saved, when they 
ought to be striving for themselves, that 
they might obtain an entrance into the strait 
gate; and some will waste those precious 
moments in speculating about the secrets of 
the book of life, which they should fill up 
by supporting themselves, and making pro- 
gress through the narrowness of the way 
that leads to it. The plain business we lay 
upon you, is to put away from you the evil 
of your doings — to submit yourselves to 
Christ, as he is offered to you — to fly to his 
atoning sacrifice for the forgiveness of your 
offences — to place yourselves under the 
guidance of his word, and a dependence on 
the influences of his Spirit — to live no longer 
to yourselves, but to him — and to fill up 
your weeks and your days with those fruits 
of righteousness, by which God is glorified. 
We stand here by the decree of heaven, and 
.it is by the same decree that you are now 
sitting round and listening to us. We feel 
the importance of the situation we occupy ; 
and though we believe in the sovereignty 
of God, and the unfailingness of all his ap- 
pointments, this, instead of restraining, im- 
pels us to bring the message of the Gospel, 
with all the practical urgency of its invita- 
tions, and its warnings, to bear upon you. 
We feel, with all our belief in predestina- 
tion, that our business is not to forbear this 
urgencj T , but to ply you with it most anxi- 
ously, and earnestly, and unceasingly; and 
you should feel, with the same belief in your 
mind, that your business is not to resist this 
urgency, but to be guided by its impulse. 
Who knows but we may be the humble in- 
strument, and you the undeserved subjects 
of some high and heavenly ordination? The 
cutting of the ropes w 7 as the turning point 
3 K 



ON THE DOCTRINE OF PREDESTINATION. 



441 



on which the deliverance of Paul's com- 
pany from shipwreck was suspended. Who 
knows but the urgency we now ply you 
with, telling upon you, and carrying your 
purposes along with it, may be the very 
step in the wonderful progress of God's 
operations, on which your conversion hin- 
ges? We, therefore, press the Gospel with 
all its duties, and all its promises, and all its 
privileges upon you. O listen, and resolve, 
and, manfully forsaking all that keeps you 
from the Saviour, we call upon you, from 
this moment, to give yourselves up unto 
him ; and be assured, it is only by acting in 
obedience to such calls laid before you in 
the Bible, and sounded in your ear from the 
pulpit, that your election unto life can ever 
be made known in this world, or reach its 
positive cons' mmation in eternity. 

And now you can have no difficulty in 
understanding how it is th b we make our 
calling and our election sure. It is not in the 
power of the elect to make their election 
surer in itself than it really is; for this is a 
sureness which is not capable of receiving 
any addition. It is not in the power of the 
elect to make it surer to God — for all futurity 
is submitted to his all-seeing eye, and his 
absolute knowledge stands in need of no 
confirmation. But there is such a thing as 
the elect being ignorant for a time of their 
own election, and their being made sure of 
it in the progress of evidence and discovery. 
And therefore it is that they are called to 
make their election sure to themselves, or 
to make themselves sure of their election. 
And how is this to be done? Not by read- 
ing it in the book of God's decrees — not by 
obtaining from him any direct information 
about his counsels — not by conferring with 
prophet or angel, gifted with the revelation 
of hidden things. But the same God who 
elects some unto everlasting life, and keeps 
back from them all direct information about 
it, tells them that he who believeth, and he 
who repenteth, and he who obeyeth the 
Gospel, shall obtain everlasting life. We 
shall never in this world have an immediate 
communication from him, whether we are 
of the elect or not — but let us believe — let us 
repent— let us obey the Saviour, and from 
the first moment of our setting ourselves to 
these things in good earnest, we may con- 
ceive the hope of a place among the heirs 
of immortality. In the progress and success 
of our endeavours, this hope may advance 
and grow brighter within us. As we grow 
in the exercises of faith and obedience, the 
light of a cheering manifestation is more 
sensibly felt, and our hope ripens into as- 
surance. "Hereby do we know that we 
know him, by our keeping his command- 
ments," is an evidence which every year 
becomes clearer and more encouraging ; and 
thus, by a well-sustained perseverance in 
the exercises of the Christian life, do we 



442 



ON THE NATURE OF THE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST. 



[SERM. 



labour with all diligence to make our call- 
ing and election sure. We call upon you, in 
the language of the Apostle, to have faith, 
and to this faith add virtue, and knowledge, 
and temperance, and patience, and godli- 
ness, and brotherly kindness, and charity. 
It is by the doing of these things, that you 
are made sure of your calling and election, 
" for if ye do these things," says Peter, "ye 
shall never fail, and an entrance shall be 
ministered unto you abundantly into the 
everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Sa- 
viour Jesus Christ." 

If there be any of you who have not fol- 
lowed this train of observation — if it still 
remain one of those things of Paul which 
are hard to be understood — let us beseech 
you, at least, that you wrest it not to your 
own destruction, by remitting your activity, 
and your diligence, and your pains-taking 
in the service of Christ. Why, the doctrine 
of election leaves our duty to exhort, and 
your duty to obey, on the same footing on 
which it found them. We are commissioned 
to lay before you the free offer of the Gos- 
pel — to press it on the acceptance of one 
and all of you — to assure every individual 
amongst you of a hearty welcome from the 



Lord God merciful and gracious — to call 
you to the service of Christ, that great Mas- 
ter of the household of faith — to urge it 
upon you, that you must renounce every 
other master, and, casting all your idols, 
and vanities, and iniquities away from you, 
to close with the invitation, and be diligent 
in all the duties and performances of the 
Gospel. If you resist, or put off— if, blind to 
the goodness of God in Christ Jesus, you 
suffer it not to lead you to repentance — if 
the call of " awake to righteousness, and sin 
not," make no practical impression on you 
— if the true assurance of pardon for the 
sins of the past, do not fill your heart with 
the desire of sanctification for the future — 
if the word of Christ be not so received by 
you as to lead to the doing of it — then you 
are just leaving undone those things, of 
which we say in the words of the text, 
" Except these things be done, ye cannot be 
saved" — and to all the guilt of your past 
disobedience, you add the aggravation of 
putting away from you both the offered 
atonement and the commanded repentance 
of the Gospel, and " how can you escape if 
you neglect so great a salvation?" 



SERMON XII. 

On the Nature of the Sin against the Holy Ghost. 

" Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men : but the blas- 
phemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against 
the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be 
forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come." — Matthew xii. 31, 32. 



Let us never suspend the practical in- 
fluence of what we do know, by idly ram- 
bling in a vain and impertinent pursuit after 
what we do not know. Thus much we 
know from the Bible, that God refuses not 
his Holy Spirit to them who ask it — that 
every right movement of principle within 
us is from him — that when we feel an im- 
pulse of conscience, we feel the Spirit of 
God knocking at the door of our hearts, and 
challenging from us that attention and that 
obedience which are due to the great Law- 
giver — that if we follow not the impulse, 
we provoke and dissatisfy him who is the 
Author of it — and that there is such a thing 
as tempting him to abandon us altogether, 
and to surrender the friendly office of plying 
us any longer with his admonitions and his 
warnings. Hence, an emphatic argument 
for immediate repentance. By every mo- 
ment of delay, we hasten upon ourselves 
the awful crisis of being let alone. The con- 
science is every day getting harder; and he 
who sits behind, and is the unseen Author 
of all its instigations, is lifting every day a 



feebler voice; and coming always nearer 
and nearer to that point in the history of 
every determined sinner, when, left to his 
own infatuation, he can hold up a stubborn 
and unyielding front to all that instrumen- 
tality of advice and of expostulation which 
is brought to bear upon him. The preacher 
plies him with his weekly voice, but the 
Spirit refuses to lend it his constraining 
energy; and all that is tender, and all that 
is terrifying in his Sabbath argument plays 
around his heart, without reaching it. The 
judgments of God go abroad against him, 
and as he carries his friends or his children 
to the grave, a few natural tears may bear 
witness to the tenderness he bore them — 
but that Spirit who gives to these judgments 
all their moral significancy, withholds from 
him the anointing which remaineth, and the 
man relapses as before into all the obstinate 
habits, and all the uncrucified affections 
which he has hitherto indulged in. The dis- 
ease gathers upon him, and gets a more 
rooted inveteracy than ever; and thus it is, 
that there are thousands and thousands 



ON THE NATURE OF THE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST. 443 



more, who, though active and astir on that 
living scene of population which is around 
us, have an iron hardness upon their souls, 
which makes them, in reference to the things 
of God, dark and sullen as the grave, and 
fast locks them in all the insensibility of 
spiritual death. Is there no old man of your 
acquaintance, who realizes this sad picture 
of one left to himself that we have now at- 
tempted so rapidly to set before you ? Then 
know, that by every deed of wilful sin, that 
by every moment of wilful delay in the 
great matter of repentance, that by every 
stifled warning of conscience, that by every 
deafening of its authoritative voice among 
the temptations of the world, and the riot 
of lawless acquaintances, you are just mov- 
ing yourself to the limits of this helpless and 
irrecoverable condition. We have no doubt, 
that you may have the intention of making 
a violent step, and suddenly turning round 
to the right path ere you die. But this you 
will not do but by an act of obedience to 
the reproaches of a conscience that is ever 
getting harder. This you will not do with- 
out the constraining influence of that Spirit, 
who is gradually dying away from you. 
This you will not do but in virtue of some 
overpowering persuasion from that monitor 
who is now stirring within you, but with 
whom you are now taking the most effectual 
method of drowning his voice, and disarm- 
ing him of all his authority. Do not you 
perceive, that in these circumstances, every 
act of delay is madness — that you are getting 
by every hour of it into deeper water — that 
you are consolidating a barrier against your 
future return to the paths of righteousness, 
which you vainly think you will be able to 
surmount when the languor and infirmity 
of old age have got hold of you — that you 
are strengthening and multiplying around 
you the wiles of an entanglement, which 
all the stragglings of deathbed terror cannot 
break asunder — that you are insulting the 
Spirit of God by this daily habit of stifling 
and neglecting the other and the other call 
that he is sounding to your moral ear, 
through the organ of conscience. And O 
the desperate hazard and folly of such a 
calculation! Think you, think you, that 
this is the way of gaining his friendly pre- 
sence at that awful moment, when the 
urgent sense of guilt and of danger forces 
from the sinner an imploring cry as he 
stands on the brink of eternity? 

" How long, ye simple ones, will ye love 
simplicity, and the scorners delight in their 
scorning, and fools hate knowledge ? Turn 
ye at my reproof. Behold I will pour out 
my spirit unto you ; I will make known my 
words unto you. Because I have called, 
and ye refused; I have stretched out my 
hand, and no man regarded ; but ye have 
set at nought all my counsel, and would 
none of my reproof: I also will laugh at 



your calamity ; I will mock when your fear 
cometh. When your fear cometh as deso 
lation, and your destruction cometh as a 
whirlwind ; when distress and anguish 
cometh upon you: then shall they call 
upon me, but I will not answer ; they shall 
seek me early, but they shall not find me." 

You see, then, how a man may shut 
against himself all the avenues of reconci- 
liation. There is nothing mysterious in the 
kind of sin by which the Holy Spirit is 
tempted to abandon him to that state in 
which there can be no forgiveness, and no 
return unto God. It is by a movement of 
conscience within him, that the man is made 
sensible of sin — that he is visited with the 
desire of reformation — that he is given to 
feel his need both of mercy to pardon, and 
of grace to help him — in a word, that he is 
drawn unto the Saviour, and brought into 
that intimate alliance with him by faith, 
which brings down upon him both accep- 
tance with the Father, and all the power of 
a new and a constraining impulse, to the 
way of obedience. But this movement is a 
suggestion of the Spirit of God, and if it be 
resisted by any man, the Spirit is resisted. 
The God who offers to draw him unto 
Christ, is resisted. The man refuses to be- 
lieve, because his deeds are evil; and by 
every day of perseverance in these deeds, 
the voice which tells him of their guilt, and 
urges him to abandon them, is resisted; 
and thus, the Spirit ceases to suggest, and 
the Father, from whom the Spirit proceed- 
eth, ceases to draw, and the inward voice 
ceases to remonstrate ; and all this because 
their authority has been so often put forth, 
and so often turned from. This is the deadly 
offence which has reared an impassable wall 
against the return of the obstinately impeni- 
tent. This is the blasphemy to which no 
forgiveness can be granted, because in its 
very nature, the man who has come this 
length, feels no movement of conscience 
towards that ground on which alone for 
giveness can be awarded to him — and where 
it is never refused even to the very worst 
and most malignant of human iniquities. 
This is the sin against the Holy Ghost. It 
is not peculiar to any one age. It does not 
lie in any one unfathomable mystery. It 
may be seen at this day in thousands and 
thousands more, who, by that most familiar 
and most frequently exemplified of all ha- 
bits, a habit of resistance to a sense of duty, 
have at length stifled it altogether, and dri- 
ven their inward monitor away from them, 
and have sunk into a profound moral lethar- 
gy, and so will never obtain forgiveness — 
not because forgiveness is ever refused to 
any who repent and believe the Gospel, but 
because they have made their faith and their 
repentance i m practicable. They choose not 
to repent ; and this choice has been made 
so often and so perse veringly, that the Spirit 



444 ON THE NATURE OF THE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST. 



has let them alone. They have obstinately 
clung to their love of darkness rather than 
of light, and the Spirit has at length turned 
away from them since they will have it so. 
They wish not to believe, because their 
deeds are evil, and that Spirit has ceased to 
strive with them, who has so often spoken 
to them in vain ; and whose many remon- 
strances have never prevailed upon them to 
abandon the evil of their doings. 

Take all this attentively along with you, 
and the whole mysteriousness of this sin 
against the Holy Ghost should be done 
away, Grant him the office with which he 
is invested in the Word of God, even the 
office of instigating the conscience to all its 
reprovals of sin, and to all its admonitions 
of repentance — and then, if ever you wit- 
nessed the case of a man whose conscience 
had fallen into a profound and irrecoverable 
sleep, or, at least, had lost to such a degree 
its power of control over him, that he stood 
out against every engine which was set up 
to bring him to the faith and the repentance 
of the New Testament— behold in such a 
man a sinner against conscience to such a 
woful extent, that conscience had given up 
its direction of him ; or, in other words, a 
sinner against the Holy Ghost to such an 
extent, that he had let down the office of 
warning him away from that ground of 
danger and of guilt on which he stood so 
immovably posted ; or, of urging him on- 
ward to that sure road of access, where if a 
man seek for pardon, he will never miss it, 
and where, if he cry for the clean heart and 
the right spirit, he will not cry in vain. 

And as there is nothing dark or incom- 
prehensible in the nature of this sin, so there 
is nothing in it to impair the freeness of the 
Gospel, or the universality of its calls and 
of its offers, or its power of salvation to all 
who will, or that attribute which is expressly 
ascribed to it, that where sin abounded, grace 
did much more abound. It is never said 
that pardon through that blood, which is 
distinctly stated to cleanse from all sin— it is 
nowhere said, that this pardon is extended 
to any but to those who believe. If you do 
not believe, you do not get pardon — and if 
you will not believe, because you love dark- 
ness rather than light — if you will not be- 
lieve, because you will not abandon those 
evil deeds which the Spirit tells you through 
the conscience, that you must forsake in 
coming unto Christ — if his repeated calls 
have been so unheeded and so withstood by 
you, that he has at length ceased from striv- 
ing, then the reason why your sin is unpar- 
donable, is just because you have refused 
the Gospel salvation. The reason why your 
case is irrecoverable, is just because you 
have refused the method of recovery so 
long, and so often, that every call of repen- 
tance has now come to play upon you in 
vain. The reason why you lie under a 



[SERM. 

guilt that can meet with no forgiveness, is 
not that one or all of your sins are of a die 
so deep and so inveterate, that the cleansing 
power of the Saviour's atonement cannot 
overmatch them. Let the invitation to the 
fountain that is opened in the house of Ju- 
dah, circulate among you as freely as the 
preacher's voice ; for sure we are, that there 
does not stand, at this moment, within the 
reach of hearing us, any desperado in vice, 
so sunk in the depths of his dark and un- 
natural rebellion, that he is not welcome if 
he will. But, if ye will not come that ye 
may have life, this is your sin. 

This is the barrier in the way of your for- 
giveness. Grant us repentance and faith, 
and we know not of a single mysterious 
crime in the whole catalogue of human de- 
pravity, that the atoning blood of our Sa- 
viour cannot wash away. But withhold 
from us repentance and faith — let us see the 
man who stands unrebuked out of his wick- 
edness by all that conscience has reproached 
him with — unmoved out of the hardness of 
his unbelief by all that power of tenderness, 
which should have softened his unrelenting 
bosom, when told of the Saviour who had 
poured out his soul unto the death for him 
—if all this contempt and resistance of his 
has been so long and so grievously persisted 
in, that the Spirit has ceased to strive — then, 
it is not the power of the Gospel that is in 
fault, but the obstinacy of him who has re- 
jected it. The sufficiency of the Gospel is 
not detracted from by so much as a jot or a 
tittle. To this very hour may we proclaim 
it as the savour of life unto life, to the very 
worst of sinners Who receive t. But if he 
so turn aside from its invitations, and the 
habit be so fixed with him, and conscience 
get into a state of such immovable dorman- 
cy, that the Spirit gives him over, it is not 
that the Gospel does not carry a remedy 
along with it for one and all of his offences, 
but because he refuses that Gospel, that it 
is to him the savour of death unto death. 

A king publishes a wide and unexpected 
amnesty to the people of a rebellious dis- 
trict in his empire, upon the bare act of 
each presenting himself within a limited 
period, before an authorized agent, and pro- 
fessing his purposes of future loyalty. Does 
it at all detract from the clemency of this 
deed of grace, that many of the rebels feel 
a strong reluctance to this personal exhibi- 
tion of themselves; and that the reluctance 
strengthens and accumulates upon them by 
every day of their postponement ; and that 
even before the season of mercy has expired, 
it has risen to such a degree of aversion on 
their part, as to form a moral barrier in the 
way of their prescribed return, that is alto- 
gether impassable ? Will you say, because 
there is no forgiveness to them, that there 
is any want of amplitude in that charter of 
forgiveness which is proclaimed in the hear- 



XII.] 



ON THE NATURE OF THE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST. 



445 



in g of all ; or, that pardon lias not been pro- 
vided for every offence, because some of- 
fenders are to be found, with such a degree 
of perverseness and of obstinacy in their 
bosom, as constrains them to a determined 
refusal of all pardon? 

The blood of Christ cleanseth from all 
sin ; and there is not a human creature, who, 
let him repent and believe, will ever find 
the crimson inveteracy of his manifold of- 
fences to be beyond the reach of its purify- 
ing and its peace-speaking power. And 
tell us if it detract by a single iota from the 
omnipotence of this great Gospel remedy, 
that there are many sinners in the world 
who refuse to lay hold of it. To the hour 
of death it is within the reach of all and of 
any who will. This is the period in the 
history of each individual, at which this 
great act of amnesty expires, and to the last 
minute of his life, it is competent for me 
and for every minister of the Gospel to urge 
it upon him, in all the largeness and in all 
the universality which belong to it — and to 
assure him, that there is not a single deed 
of wickedness with which his faithful me- 
mory now agonizes him, not one habit of 
disobedience that now clothes his retrospect 
of the past in the sad colouring of despair, 
all the guilt of which, and all the condemna- 
tion of which, the blood of the offered Sa- 
viour cannot do away. But, though we may 
offer, that is not to say that he will accept. 
Though we may proclaim, and urge the 
proclamation in his hearing, with every 
tone of truth and of tenderness, that is not 
to say, that our voice will enter with power, 
or make its resistless way through those 
avenues of his heart, where he has done so 
much to rear a defending barrier, that may 
prove to be impenetrable. Though there be 
truth in our every announcement, that is 
not to say, that the demonstration of the 
Spirit will accompany it — even that Spirit 
who long ere now may have left to himself 
the man, who, his whole life long, has 
grieved and resisted him. It is still true, 
that the pardon lies at his acceptance : and 
it may be as true, that there can be no par- 
don to him because he has brought such an 
inveterate blindness upon his soul, that he 
will neither receive the truth, nor love it, 
nor feel those genuine impulses by which it 
softens the heart of man to repentance. And 
thus it is, that while the blood of Christ 
cleanseth the every sin of every believer, 
the sin against the Holy Ghost shall not be 
forgiven, because with this sin, and with its 
consequences upon him, man wills not, and 
repents not, and believes not. 

And now for the interesting question, — 
How am I to know that I have committed 
this sin, that is said to be beyond the reach 
of forgiveness? We are sure that the right 
solution of this question, if well understood, 
would go to dissipate all that melancholy 



which has been felt upon the subject, by 
many a bewildered inquirer. You cannot 
take a review of the years that are gone, and 
fetch up this mysterious sin to your remem- 
brance out of the history of the sins that 
are past. There is not one of them, which, 
if turned away from, in the faith of that 
pardon that is through the blood of the 
atonement — there is not one of them beyond 
the reach of ;lhe great redemption of the 
Gospel. The sin against the Holy Ghost is 
not some awful and irrevocable deed, around 
which a disordered fancy has thrown its 
superstitious array, and which beams- in 
deeper terror upon the eye of the mind, 
from the very obscurity by which it is en- 
compassed. There ought to be no darkness 
and no mystery about it. The sin against 
the Holy Ghost is such a daring and obsti- 
nate rebellion against the prerogatives of 
conscience — that all its calls to penitency 
have been repelled — and all the urgency of 
its admonitions to flee to the offered Saviour, 
has been withstood — and all this obstinacy 
of resistance has been carried forward to 
such a point in the history of the unhappy 
man, that his conscience has ceased from 
the exercise of its functions ; and the Holy 
Spirit has laid down his office of prompting 
it ; and the tenderness of a beseeching God 
may be sounded in his ear — but unaccom- 
panied as it is by that power which makes 
a willing and obedient people, it reaches not 
his sullen and inflexible heart. And instead, 
therefore, of looking for that sin among 
those imaginary few who mourn and are in 
distress, under an overwhelming sense of 
its enormity, I look for it to those thou- 
sands, who, trenched among the seculari- 
ties of the world, or fully set on the mad 
career of profligacy, are posting their care- 
less and infatuated way — and suffering Sab- 
baths and opportunities to pass over them — 
and turn with contempt from the foolishness 
of preaching — and hold up the iron front of 
insensibility against all that is appalling in 
the judgments of God — and cling to this 
perishable scene under the most touching 
experiences of its vanity — and walk their 
unfaltering path amid all the victims which 
mortality has strewn around them — and 
every year drink deeper into the spirit of 
the world — till the moral disease rises to 
such an inveteracy, that all the engines of 
conversion, unaided as they are, by that 
peculiar force and demonstration which is 
from on high, fall powerless as infancy upon 
them, and every soul amongst them, sunk 
in torpor immovable, will never, never be 
made to know the power and the life of a 
spiritual resurrection. 

We know nothing that goes farther to 
nullify the Bible, than the habit of subject- 
ing the interpretation of its passages to any 
other principle, than that all its parts must 
consist and be in harmony with each other. 



446 ON THE NATURE OF THE SIN 

There has a world of mischief been done 
by the modifications that have been laid on 
the obvious meaning of Scripture, with the 
purpose of rendering it more palatable to 
our independent views of what is right, and 
wise, and reasonable. This, in fact, is de- 
posing the word of God from that primitive 
authority which belongs to it, as the court 
of highest appeal — all whose decisions are 
final and irreversible. Grant us that there is 
no contradiction between what we find in 
the book of God's counsel, and what we 
know by the evidence of our own experi- 
ence, or the overbearing testimony of others 
— and such we hold to be the ignorance of 
man about the whole of that spiritual and 
unseen world which lies beyond the circle 
of his own observation, that we count it not 
merely his most becoming piety, but we 
count it also his soundest and most en- 
lightened philosophy, to sit down with the 
docility of a little child to all that is inti- 
mated and made known to him by a well- 
attested revelation. After the deductions we 
have just now made, we know of no other 
principle on which we should ever offer to 
modify a verse or a clause of the written 
record ; but the principle of that entire con- 
sistency which must reign throughout all 
its communications. We know of no other 
cross-examination which we have a right to 
set up on this witness to the invisible things 
of faith — than to try it by itself, and to con- . 
demn it, if possible, out of its own mouth, 
by confronting together its own depositions. 
We are only at freedom to sustain or to 
qualify the literal sense of one of its an- 
nouncements, by the literal and equally au- 
thoritative sense of some other of its an- 
nouncements. And such >s our respect for 
the paramount authority of Scripture, that 
we know of no discovery more pleasing, 
than that by which the apparent inconsis- 
tency between two places, is so cleared up, 
that all necessity for encroaching upon the 
literal sense of either of them is completely 
done away — for it goes to establish our 
every impression of the unviolable sanc- 
tity of its various communications, and to 
heighten our belief that every semblance of 
opposition between the particulars of the 
divine testimony, exists not in the testimony 
itself, but in the misapprehension of our own 
dark and imperfect understandings. 

Now, if you look to the 31st verse of the 
12th chapter of Matthew, you will perceive, 
that all who think the sin against the Holy 
Ghost to lie in the commission of some rare 
and monstrous, but at the same time spe- 
cific iniquity, cannot admit the first clause 
of the verse without qualifying it by some 
of the undeniable doctrines of the New Tes- 
tament. They would say, it is not true 
that all manner of sin shall be forgiven unto 
men, with the exception of this blasphemy 
against the Holy Ghost, which they con- 



AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST. [SERM. 

ceive to occur but seldom in the history of 
human wickedness. They would say, that 
there is forgiveness to no sin whatever but 
on the faith and the repentance of him who 
has incurred it— and we must, therefore, 
suppose this, and qualify the clause by this 
indispensable condition, and thus make the 
clause to tell us, how such is the power of 
the Gospel, that all the sin and blasphemy 
shall be forgiven of those who have em- 
braced it — save that one sin against the 
Holy Ghost, for the remission of which, not 
even their acceptance of the Gospel of Christ 
could avail them. 

Now, the explanation we have given of 
this sin renders all this work of annexing 
terms and modifications to this verse of the 
Bible unnecessary, and gives, we think, even 
to its literal and unrestricted meaning, a 
most lucid consistency with all that is lead- 
ing and that is undeniable in the doctrine 
of the New Testament. If the sin against 
the Holy Ghost be just that sin, in virtue of 
which the calls and offers of the Gospel are 
so rejected, as to be finally and irreversibly 
put away from us, then it is true, it is abso- 
lutely and unreservedly true, that all other 
manner of sin shall be forgiven but this one 
only. All who so reject this Gospel, have 
sinned against the Holy Ghost — and none 
who accept this Gospel have incurred this 
sin, nor shall they want the forgiveness that 
is there provided for them. It is quite in 
vain to think, that the sin against the Holy 
Ghost is confined to that period of the world 
at which our Saviour made his personal ap- 
pearance in it. The truth is, that it is since 
Christ withdrew from the world, that he 
now carries forward by the Spirit, as his 
agent and substitute, the business of press- 
ing home upon men the acceptance of the 
Gospel, by working with their consciences. 
He employs the Spirit as his witness, since 
he himself has gone away from us ; and as 
in the business of entertaining the calls and 
the offers of the New Testament, our doings 
are more exclusively with this Spirit, and 
not at all with the Saviour himself personally, 
we are surely as much in the way of now 
committing the sin in question, as in those 
days when the Holy Ghost was not so 
abundantly given, because Jesus Christ was 
not then glorified. All those, be assured, 
who refuse the Gospel now, do so because 
they refuse the testimony of this witness- 
do so because they stifle within them the 
urgency of his rebuke, when he tells them 
of faith and of repentance — do so when he 
offers to convince them on principles that 
would be clear to themselves, could they 
only be so far arrested by the imperious 
claims of God and of eternity, as to attend to 
them — convince them that they are indeed 
on a way of guilt and of alienation, which, 
if not turned from, through the revealed 
Mediator, will land them in the condemna- 



XII.] 



ON THE NATURE OF THE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST. 



447 



tion of a most righteous and immitigable 
law. And thus, in the day of reckoning, will 
this verse, in its most plain and obvious 
literaiity, be so accomplished on the hosts 
who are assembled round the judgment- 
seat — that all who are free from this sin 
shall have their every other sin forgiven, 
just because they have obeyed the Gospel 
in embracing the overtures of forgiveness — 
and that all who, on that day, shall find no 
escape, and no forgiveness, have this doom 
laid upon them, just because each, without 
exception, has incurred the sin to which no 
forgiveness is awarded, by the very act of 
neglecting the great salvation. 

The sin, then, against the Holy Ghost, so 
far from conferring any rare distinction of 
wickedness on him who is guilty of it, is, in 
fact, the sin of all who, living under the 
dispensation of the Gospel, have, by their 
rejection of it, made it the " savour of death 
unto death." It is a sin which can be 
charged upon every man who has put the 
overtures of forgiveness away from him. It 
is a sin which if, on the great day of ex- 
amination, you are found to be free from, 
will argue your acceptance of the Gospel, 
in virtue of which its forgiveness is made 
sure to you. And it is a sin, which, if found 
on that day to adhere to you, will argue 
your final refusal of this same Gospel, in 
virtue of which your forgiveness is impossi- 
ble — because you are out of the only way 
given under heaven whereby men can be 
saved. So that this sin, looked upon by 
many as the sin of one particular age, or, if 
possible to realize it in the present day, as 
only to be met with in a few solitary in- 
stances of enormous and unexpiable trans- 
gression, is the very sin upon which may 
be made to turn the condemnation and 
the ruin of the existing majority of our 
species. 

Before we are done with this subject, 
there is one question that remains to be 
disposed of. Does it appear, from the his- 
torical circumstances of the case, that that 
conduct of the Pharisees which called forth 
from our Saviour the denunciation of the 
text, bears a resemblance to the account we 
have given of the sin against the Holy 
Ghost, as exemplified by the men of the 
present generation? In their rejecting of 
Christ, was there a determined rebellion of 
purpose against the light of their own con- 
science 1 Was there a wilful and resolved 
suppression of the force of evidence ? Was 
there a habitual stifling within them of the 
movement and the impulse of moral princi- 
ple % Was there a firm and deliberate post- 
ing of themselves on the ground of opposi- 
tion, in the whole of their past resistance to 
this Jesus of Nazareth ? Was there an ob- 
stinate keeping of this ground ? Was there 
an audacious and desperate intent of holding 
out against all that could be offered in the 



shape of proofs or of remonstrances on the 
side of Christianity ? Was there a volun- 
tary darkening, on their part, of the light 
of truth when it began to dawn upon their 
souls, and threatened to carry their convic- 
tions away from them ? Was there a habit 
of fetching up, at all hazards, every argu- 
ment, however false and however blas- 
phemous it may be, on which they might 
rest the measures of a proud and interested 
party, and thus might give the shape and 
the colour of plausibility to that systematic 
opposition they had entered on? 

It strikes us, that the whole history of 
the Pharisees in the New Testament, holds 
them out in the very attitude of mind which 
we have now described to you. And think 
you not that in the work of maintaining 
this attitude against the warfare of all that 
moral and miraculous argument which was 
brought to bear upon them, they never 
smothered the instigations of conscience, 
and through it rebelled against that Spirit, 
who conveyed, by this organ of the inner 
man, the whispers of his still but impres- 
sive voice ? " Which of you convinceth me 
of sin," says the Saviour, " and if I tell you 
the truth, why do you not believe me ?" Did 
conscience never tell them how impossible 
it was that Jesus of Nazareth could lie ? 
Did not the words of him who spake as 
never man spake, bear upon them the im- 
press of truth as well as of dignity? Is 
there not such a thing as the suspicious as- 
pect of an impostor, and is there not also 
such a thing as the open, the declared, the 
ingenuous, and altogether overbearing as- 
pect of integrity — and is it not conceivable, 
how, in this way, the words of the Saviour 
might have carried such a moral evidence 
along with them, as to stamp an unques- 
tionable character on all his attestations? 
Now, was there no resisting of the Holy 
Spirit in the act of shutting the eye of the 
judgment against the whole weight and au- 
thority of this character ? In the person of 
Jesus of Nazareth, the men of that day were 
honoured with the singular privilege of be- 
holding God manifest in the flesh — of seeing 
all the graces of the Holy Spirit substan- 
tiated, without one taint of imperfection, on 
the life and character of one who wore the 
form of the species — of witnessing, if we 
may so express ourselves, a sensible exhi- 
bition of the Godhead — of hearing the truth 
of God fall in human utterance upon their 
ears, with a tone of inimitable candour — of 
seeing the earnest longing of God after the 
creatures he had formed, stamped in living 
and undeniable traces upon a human coun- 
tenance — of beholding the tenderness of 
God expressed in human tears, by him who 
wept over the sins and the sufferings of 
mankind — and all the goodness of Deity 
distinctly announcing itself in the mild and 
impressive sympathies of a human voice. 



448 ON THE NATURE OF THE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST. [SERM. 



Think you not that there was no struggling 
with their own consciences, and no wilful 
blinding of their own hearts, on the part of 
those by whom such an exhibition was re- 
sisted ? Surely, surely, the Spirit of God 
did much to subdue their acquiescence in 
the alone way of salvation — when all his 
fruits and all his accomplishments were 
gathered upon the person of the Redeemer 
into one visible assemblage — when the 
whole force of this moral ascendency was 
made so nearly and so repeatedly to bear 
upon them — when truth, with all its plead- 
ing energy, assailed them — and gentleness 
tried to win them over to the cause of their 
own eternity — and the soft eye of compas- 
sion beamed upon them — and the unwearied 
forbearance, which no weight of personal 
injustice could overcome, told them how, 
for their sakes, Jesus of Nazareth was ready 
to do all and to suffer all — and patience, even 
unto martyrdom, left a meek, but a firm testi- 
mony behind it. O ! think you not, that in 
the perverse representations, and the spite- 
ful malignity, and the sullen immoveable 
hardness, by which all this was withstood 
and overborne, there was such an outrage 
upon the authority of conscience, and such 
a dark and determined principle of rebellion 
against him who prompts it with all its in- 
stigations, as by provoking him to cast them 
off from all his further communications, 
might raise an eternal barrier against that 
faith, and that repentance, and that obedi- 
ence to the Gospel of Christ, through which 
alone forgiveness is extended to a guilty 
world. 

To aggravate still further this resistance 
to the moral claims of the Saviour, on the 
part of his inflexible enemies, let us see how 
these very claims told on the consciences 
of other men. The officers whom they sent 
to apprehend him, when they went, faltered 
from the purpose, at what they saw and 
heard — and when they returned with their 
errand unfulfilled, and the answer in their 
mouth, that " surely never man spake like 
this man," they found the masters they had 
to deal with were made of sterner mate- 
rials — men who knew not what it was to 
falter — men who reproached them for their 
moral sensibility — and who had sternly 
resolved, at all hazards, and in defiance to 
all principle, to rid themselves of this dan- 
gerous pretender. Again, when they insti- 
gated Pilate to a capital sentence against 
him, the Roman governor was shaken by 
all that he observed of this innocent victim 
— but look all the while at the unrelenting 
constancy with which they kept by their 
purpose ; and in the barbarous prosecution 
of it schooled the governor out of his diffi- 
culties ; and raised the phrenzy of the popu- 
lace ; and surrounded the best and kindest 
of the species with the scowl of a brutal 
and reviling multitude. And. lastly, when 



he had sealed his testimony by his blood, 
mark how the man who presided over the 
execution, was overpowered into the ac- 
knowledgment, that " Surely this was the 
Son of God;" and how they, unsoftened 
and unsubdued, stood fast to their object — 
and got his body to be watched, and a stoiy 
to be devised, and a falsehood of deliberate 
manufacture to be thrown afloat, with which 
they might stem the growing faith of our 
Saviour's resurrection. Now, in this differ- 
ence between the resolved and inflexible 
hatred of the Jewish persecutors of Christ, 
and the relentings of other men, do you see 
no suppression of the voice of conscience — 
no resistance to that light of principle which 
sends forth an occasional gleam over the 
path of the determinedly reprobate, do you 
see no one of those ingredients which give 
to the sin against the Holy Ghost all the 
malignancy that belongs to it — or, rather, in 
this hsrd and unmovable hostility against 
one whose challenge to convince him of 
sin, they dared not to entertain ; against 
one, of whom they could not fail to perceive, 
that he was the mildest, and the sincerest, 
and the most unoffending, and the most un- 
wearied in well-doing of all the characters 
that had met their observation, do you not 
perceive how it was in the cause of their 
own offended pride, and their own threat- 
ened interest, that they made their sys- 
tematic resistance to every moral argument, 
and hurried away their minds from every 
painful remonstrance — and that, too, in the 
very style in which the obstinately impeni- 
tent of the day do, in resistance to every 
demonstration of guilt, and to every warn- 
ing of danger, walk in the counsel of their 
own hearts, and in the sight of their own 
eyes. 

It is very true, that it was upon an out- 
ward act of speaking, on the part of the 
Pharisees, that our Saviour uttered this re- 
markable denunciation. But remember 
what he says himself upon this subject- 
how the things which come out of a man 
are evil, because they are the products of a 
heart which is evil. Remember what is 
said a few verses before — how our Saviour, 
who knew what was in man, knew the 
thoughts of those Pharisees ; and it is upon 
his knowledge of their thoughts, that he 
ascribed such a malignity, and laid such a 
weight of condemnation on the words 
which conveyed them. Remember what 
is said a few verses after, where the fruit 
is represented as bad, just because the tree 
is bad— where the words have their whole 
character of evil imparted to them, just be- 
cause it is out of the abundance of the heart 
that the mouth speaketh, and out of the evil 
humours of the heart, that the man bring- 
eth forth evil things. And surely, when, 
after our Saviour had uttered such a pecu- 
liar sentence of condemnation on the sin 



XII.] 



ON THE NATURE OF THE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST. 



449 



against the Holy Ghost, he expressly con- 
nects the words of the mouth, with the dis- 
position of the heart, ere he tells us that it 
was by our words we shall be justified, and 
by our words we shall be condemned — we 
ought no longer to do what we are sure is 
done by many in their obscure imagina- 
tions upon this subject, we ought not to 
liken the sin against the Holy Ghost to the 
spell of some magical incantation, deriving 
the whole of that deadly taint which be- 
longs to it, from some infernal charm 
with which the utterance of mere language 
is dark!}" and unaccountably impregnated. 
But knowing that every denunciation of 
our great Spiritual Teacher, had some clear 
and unchangeable principle of morality 
to rest upon — and perceiving, as we do, 
that on this very occasion he refers us to 
the disposition of the heart, as that which 
gives to the utterance of the tongue all its 
malignity, let us, when reading of this des- 
parate guilt of the Pharisees, look to the 
spirit and moral temper of the Pharisees, 
and if possible, gather a something that 
may carry to our own bosoms a salutary 
and convincing application. 

And a single glance at the circumstances 
may be enough to satisfy us, that never, in 
any one recorded passage of their history, 
did they evince the bent of so inflexible a 
determination against the authority of con- 
science — never such a wilful darkening of 
their own hearts against the light and the 
power of evidence, as in the passage that is 
now before us. The whole weight of that 
moral argument on which we have already 
expatiated, was reinforced by a miracle so 
striking and so palpable in its effects, that 
all the people were thrown into amazement. 
But what constituted the peculiarity of the 
miracle was, that it was just such a miracle 
as the Pharisees themselves had been ac- 
customed to look upon with veneration, and 
had viewed as an example of successful 
hostility against the empire of darkness. 
They had faith in these possessions. They 
counted every one of them to be the work 
of Beelzebub, and the casting out of any of 
them as a direct triumph of warfare against 
the prince of the devils. They themselves, 
it would appear, laid claim to the power 
of dispossessing these demons, and we have 
no doubt that the imagination of such a 
power residing with them and their chil- 
dren, or proselytes, would help to give 
them that prophetical sanctity in the eyes 
of the common people, which they so much 
aspired after. 

But when the very thing on which they 
tried to strengthen their own claims to au- 
thority, was done by that man, the progress 
of whose authority, among his countrymen, 
they were determined, at all hazards, to ar- 
rest ; they went round the whole compass 
of their principles, and quashed the voice 



of every one of them, rather than own the 
hand of God, or submit to the demonstra- 
tion of his power in the miracle before 
them. It was indeed a desperate fetch that 
they made for an argument, when the very 
work in which they gloried, and on which 
they founded the credit of their own order, 
was so maligned and misrepresented by 
them. They had ever been in the habit of 
ascribing the possessions of that age to the 
power of Beelzebub — and now to give a co- 
lour to their hatred to Jesus and his claims, 
they suppose the house of Beelzebub to 
be divided against itself, and they ascribe 
to his power a miracle, the doing of which 
went to dispossess him of a part of his em- 
pire. They pretended that their sons or 
their proselytes had the power of casting 
out those possessions, and never failed to 
ascribe this power to the Spirit and the 
countenance of God — but now they turned 
round upon the matter, and by rearing the 
argument against the Saviour in the direct- 
face of their own principle, did they prove 
how firmly they were resolved to lay hold 
of any thing, rather than admit the claims 
of one who was so offensive to them. Thus 
did they give, perhaps at this moment, a 
more conspicuous evidence than they had 
ever done before, how every proof and 
every remonstrance would all be wasted 
upon them. The Spirit of God had gone 
his uttermost length with them, and on 
abandoning them for ever, he left behind 
him their blood upon their own head, and 
the misery of an irrecoverable condition, 
that was of their own bringing on. He had 
long borne with them — and it will be seen 
in the day of reckoning, when all myste- 
ries are cleared up, how great the patience, 
and the kindness, and the unwearied per- 
severance were which they had resisted. 
For though the spirit strives long, he does 
not strive always ; and they brought on 
this crisis in their history, just by the very 
steps in which every impenitent man brings 
it on in the present day, by a wilful resist- 
ance to the light of their own understand- 
ing ; by a resolute suppression of the voice 
of their own conscience. 

But we must bring all these explanations 
to a close. The distinction between speak- 
ing against the Son of man, and speaking 
against the Holy Ghost, may be illustrated 
by what he says of the difference between 
bearing witness of himself, and another 
bearing witness of him. If he had had no 
other testimony than his own to offer, they 
had not had sin. If he had not done the 
works before them which none other man 
did, and which no mere son of man could 
do, they had not had sin. If he had no- 
thing to show on which to sustain the cha- 
racter that signalized him above the mere 
children of men, their resistance could have 
been forgiven ; but he had shown the most 



450 



ON THE ADVANTAGES OF CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE 



j SERM. 



abundant evidence on this point— he had 
just performed a deed which their every 
habit, and their every conception, led them to 
ascribe to the Spirit and the power of God, 
and he had brought forward what to their 
own judgments was the testimony of the 
Spirit, and they resisted it. It was no 
longer now an opposition to man, and a rail- 
ing of man, and a contemptuous negligence 
of man : all this is sinful ; but it was not 
that which blocked up the way against the 
remission of sin ; it was when they reviled 
him who offered to lead them on in that 
way, that they were ever strengthening the 
barrier which lay across the path of accept- 
ance. While the last and most conclusive 
proof that would be given of Jesus having 
indeed the seal and the commission of the 
Spirit upon him, was not yet tried and 
found ineffectual ; all their opposition to 
him still partook of opposition to one of 
whom the most decisive evidence that he 
was any thing more than the Son of man, 



was still in reserve. It still partook of op- 
position to a fellow-man. But when that 
decisive evidence was at length offered, and 
the Spirit interposed with his last and 
greatest attempt to vindicate his own seal, 
and to authenticate his own commission on 
the person of Jesus of Nazareth ; then that 
which was before the speaking evil of the 
Son of man become the speaking evil of 
the Son of God ; and that, aggravated to 
the uttermost length that it now would be 
permitted to go. And the Pharisees, by 
smothering the light of all that evidence 
which the Holy Spirit had brought forward, 
both in the miracles that were done, and m 
the graces of that sinless example which 
was set so impressively before them, had 
by that time raised in their hearts such 
an entrenchment of prejudice against the 
faith of the Gospel, and so discouraged the 
Holy Spirit from any farther attempt to scale 
and to surmount it, that all recovery was 
hopeless, and all forgiveness was impossible. 



SERMON XIII. 

On the Advantages of Christian Knowledge to the Lower Orders of Society. 

" Better is a poor and a wise child than an old and foolish king, who will no more be admonished." — 

Ecclesiastes iv. 13. 



There is no one topic on which the Bi- 
ble, throughout the variety of its separate 
compositions, maintains a more lucid and 
entire consistency of sentiment, than the 
superiority of moral over all physical and 
all external distinctions. This lesson is 
frequently urged in the Old Testament, and 
as frequently reiterated in the New. There 
is a predominance given in both to worth, 
and to wisdom, and to principle, which 
leads us to understand, that within the 
compass of human attainment, there is an 
object placed before us of a higher and more 
estimable character than all the objects of 
a common-place ambition — that wherever 
there is mind, there stands associated with 
it a nobler and more abiding interest than 
all the aggrandizements which wealth or 
rank can bestow — that within the limits of 
the moral and intellectual department of 
our nature, there is a commodity which 
money cannot purchase, and possesses a 
more sterling excellence than all which 
money can command. This preference of 
man viewed in his essential attributes, to 
man viewed according to the variable ac- 
cessories by which he is surrounded — this 
preference of the subject to all its outward 
and contingent modifications — this prefer- 
ence of man viewed as the possessor of a 



heart, and of a spirit, and of capacities for 
truth and for righteousness, to man signal- 
ized by prosperity, and clothed in the pomp 
and in the circumstance of its visible glories 
— this is quite akin with the superiority 
which the Bible every where ascribes to the 
soul over the body, and to eternity over 
time, and to the Supreme Author of Being 
over all that is subordinate and created. It 
marks a discernment, unclouded by all those 
associations which are so current and have 
so fatal an ascendency in our world — the 
wisdom of a purer and more ethereal re- 
gion than the one we occupy — the unpol- 
luted clearness of a light shining in a dark 
place, which announces its own coming 
to be from above, and gives every spiritual 
reader of the Bible to perceive the beaming 
of a powerful and presiding intelligence 
in all its pages. 

One very animating inference to be drawn 
from our text, is, how much may be made 
of humanity. Did a king come to take up 
his residence among you — did he shed a 
grandeur over your city by the presence of 
his court, and give the impulse of his ex- 
penditure to the trade of its population — it 
were not easy to rate the value and the 
magnitude which such an event would have 
on the estimation of a common understand- 



XIII.] 



TO THE LOWER ORDERS OF SOCIETY. 



451 



ing, or the degree of personal importance 
which would attach to him, who stood a 
lofty object in the eye of admiring towns- 
men. And yet it is possible, out of the raw 
and ragged materials of the obscurest lane, 
to rear an individual of more inherent 
worth, than him who thus draws the gaze 
of the world upon his person. By the act 
of training in wisdom's ways the most tat- 
tered and neglected boy who runs upon our 
pavements, do we present the community 
with that which, m wisdom's estimation, is 
of greater price than this gorgeous inhabi- 
tant of a palace. And when one thinks 
how such a process may be multiplied 
among the crowded families that are around 
us — when one thinks of the extent and the 
density of that mine of moral wealth, which 
retires, and deepens, and accumulates, be- 
hind each front of the street along which 
we are passing — when one tries to compute 
the quantity of spirit that is imbedded in 
the depth and the frequency of these hu- 
man habitations, and reflects of this native 
ore, that more than the worth of a monarch 
may be stamped, by instruction, on each 
separate portion of it — afield is thus opened 
for the patriotism of those who want to give 
an augmented value to the produce of our 
land, which throws into insignificance all 
the enterprises of vulgar speculation. Com- 
merce may flourish, or may fail — and amid 
the ruin of her many fluctuations, may ele- 
vate a few of the more fortunate of her sons 
to the affluence of princes. Thy merchants 
may be princes, and thy traffickers be the 
honouiable of the earth. 

But if there be truth in our text, there 
may, on the very basis of human society, 
and by a silent process of education, mate- 
rials be formed, which far outweigh in cost 
and true dignity, all the blazing pinnacles 
that glitter upon its summit — and it is, in- 
deed, a cheering thought to the heart of a 
philanthropist, that near him lies a territory 
so ample, on which he may expatiate — 
where for all his pains, and all his sacrifices, 
he is sure of a repayment more substantial, 
than was ever wafted by richly laden flo- 
tilla to our shores — where the return comes 
to him, not in that which superficially decks 
the man, but in a solid increment of value 
fixed and perpetuated on the man himself— 
where additions to the worth of the soul 
form the proceeds of his productive opera- 
tion — and where, when he reckons up the 
profits of his enterprise, he finds them to 
consist of that, which, on the highest of all 
authorities, he is assured to be more than 
meat, of that which is greatly more than 
raiment. 

Even without looking beyond the con- 
fines of our present world, the virtue of hum- 
ble life will bear to be advantageously con- 
trasted with all the pride and glory of an 
elevated condition. The man who, though 



among the poorest of them all, has a wis- 
dom and a weight of character, which 
makes him the oracle of his neighbourhood 
— the man, who, vested with no other au- 
thority than the meek authority of worth, 
carries in his presence a power to shame 
and to overawe the profligacy that is around 
him — the venerable father, from whose 
lowly tenement the voice of psalms is heard 
to ascend with the offering up of every 
evening sacrifice — the Christian sage, who, 
exercised among life's severest hardships, 
looks calmly onward to heaven, and trains 
the footsteps of his children in the way that 
leads to it—the eldest of a well-ordered 
family, bearing their duteous and honoura- 
ble part in the contest with its difficulties 
and its trials — all these offer to our notice 
such elements of moral respectability, as do 
exist among the lowest orders of human 
society, and elements, too. which admit of 
being multiplied far beyond the reach of 
any present calculation. And while we 
hold nothing to be more unscriptural than 
the spirit of a factious discontent with the 
rulers of our land — while we feel nothing 
to be more untasteful than the insolence of 
a vulgar disdain towards men of rank, or 
men of opulence — yet should the king upon 
the throne be taught to understand, that 
there is a dignity of an intrinsically higher 
order than the dignity of birth or power — 
a dignity which may be seen to sit with 
gracefulness on the meanest of his subjects 
— and which draws from the heart of the 
beholder a truer and profounder reverence. 

So that, were it for nothing more than to 
bless and adorn our present state, there can- 
not be an attempt of greater promise, than 
that of extending education among the 
throng of our peasantry ; there cannot be 
a likelier way of filling the country with 
beauteous and exalted spectacles — there can- 
not be a readier method of pouring a glory 
over the face of our land, than that of spread- 
ing the wisdom of life, and the wisdom of 
principle, throughout the people who live 
in it — a glory differing in kind, but greatly 
higher in degree, than the glories of com- 
mon prosperity. It is well that the pro- 
gress of knowledge is now looked to by 
politicians without alarm — that the igno- 
rance of the poor is no longer regarded as 
more essential to the devotion of their pa- 
triotism, than it is to the devotion of their 
piety — that they have, at length, found that 
the best way of disarming the lower orders 
of all that is threatening and tumultuous, 
is not to enthral, but to enlighten them; 
that the progress of truth among them, in- 
stead of being viewed with dismay^ is 
viewed with high anticipation — and an im- 
pression greatly more just, and greatly more 
generous, is now beginning to prevail, that 
the strongest rampart which can possibly 
be thrown around the cause of public tran- 



452 



ON THE ADVANTAGES OF CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE 



[SERM. 



quillity, consists of a people raised by in- 
formation, and graced by all moral and all 
Christian accomplishments. 

For our own part, We trust, that the 
mighty interval of separation between the 
higher and lower orders of our community, 
will, at length, be broken down, not by any 
inroad of popular violence; not by the 
fierce and devouring sweep of any revolu- 
tionary tempest ; not even by any new ad- 
justment, either of the limits of power, or 
the limits of property ; not, in short, as the 
result of any battle, fought either on the 
arena of war, or on the arena of politics ; 
but as the fruit of that gradual equalization 
in mind and in manners, to which even 
now a sensible approach is already making 
on the part of our artisans and our labour- 
ers. They are drawing towards an equality, 
and on that field, too, in which equality is 
greatly most honourable. And we fondly 
hope, that the time is coming, when, in 
frank and frequent intercourse, we shall 
behold the ready exchange of confidence 
on the one side, and affection on the other 
— when the rich and the poor shall love 
each other more, just because they know 
each other more — when each party shall 
recognise the other to be vastly worthier 
of regard and of reverence than is now ap- 
prehended — when united by the sympathies 
of a common hope, and a common nature, 
and on a perfect level with all that is essen- I 
tial and characteristic of humanity, they 
shall, at length, learn to live in love and 
peacefulness together, as the expectants of 
one common heaven — as the members of 
one common and rejoicing family. 

But, to attain a just estimate of the supe- 
riority of the poor man who has wisdom, 
over the rich man who has it not, we must 
enter into the calculation of eternity — we 
must look to wisdom in its true essence, as 
consisting of religion, as having the fear of 
God for its beginning, and the rule of God 
for its way, and the favour of God for its 
full and satisfying termination— we must 
compute how speedily it is, that, on the 
wings of time, the season of every paltry 
distinction between them must, at length, I 
pass away ; how soon death will strip the 
one of his rags, and the other of his pa- 
geantry, and send them, in utter nakedness, 
to the dust ; how soon judgment will sum- 
mon them from their graves, and place 
them in outward equality before the great 
disposer of their future lot, and their future 
place, through ages which never end ; how, 
in that situation, the accidental distinctions 
of life will be rendered void , and personal dis- 
tinctions will be all that shall avail them ; how, 
when examined by the secrets of the inner 
man, and the deeds done in their body, the 
treasure of heaven shall be adjudged only 
to him whose heart was set upon it in this 
world j and how tremendously the account 



between them will be turned, when it shall 
be found of the one, that he must perish 
for lack of knowledge, and of the other, that 
he has the wisdom which is unto salvation. 

And here it is of importance to remark, 
that to be wise as a Christian is wise, it is 
not essential to have that higher scholar- 
ship which wealth alone can purchase — that 
such is the peculiar adaptation of the Gos- 
pel to the poor, that it may be felt in the 
full force of its most powerful evidence, by 
the simplest of its hearers— that to be con- 
vinced of its truth, all which appears neces- 
sary is, to have a perception of sin through 
the medium of the conscience, and a per- 
ception of the suitableness of the offered 
Saviour through the medium of a revela- 
tion, plain in its terms, and obviously sin- 
cere and affectionate in its calls. Philoso- 
phy does not melt the conscience. Philoso- 
phy does not make luminous that which in 
itself is plain. Philosophy does not bring 
home, with greater impression upon the 
heart, the symptoms of honesty and good 
will, which abound in the New Testament. 
Prayer may do it. Moral earnestness may 
do it. The Spirit, given to those who ask 
him, may shine with the light of his demon- 
stration, on the docility of those little chil- 
dren, who are seeking, with their whole 
hearts, the way of peace, and long to have 
their feet established on the paths of righ- 
teousness. There is a learning, the sole 
fruit of which is a laborious deviation from 
the truth as it is in Jesus. And there is a 
learning which reaches no farther than to 
the words in which that truth is announced, 
and yet reaches far enough to have that 
truth brought home with power upon the 
understanding — a learning, the sole achieve- 
ment of which is, to read the Bible, and yet 
by which the scholar is conducted to that 
hidden wisdom, which is his light in life, 
and his passport to immortality — a learning, 
which hath simply led the inquirer's way 
to that place, where the Holy Ghost hath 
descended upon him in rich effusion, and 
which, as he was reading in his own tongue, 
the wonderful works of God, has given 
them such a weight and such a clearness in 
his eyes, that they have become to him the 
words whereby he shall be saved. And 
thus it is, that in many a cottage of our 
land, there is a wisdom which is reviled, or 
unknown, in many of our halls of litera- 
ture—there is the candle of the Lord shin- 
ing in the hearts of those who fear him — 
there is a secret revealed unto babes, which 
is hidden from the wise and the prudent — 
there is an eye which discerns, and a mind 
that is well exercised on the mysteries of 
the sure and the well-ordered covenant — 
there is a sense and a feeling of the pre- 
ciousness of that cross, the doctrine of 
which is foolishness to those who perish — 
there is a ready apprehension of that truth 



XIII.] 



TO THE LOWER ORDERS OF SOCIETY. 



453 



which is held at nought by many rich, and 
many mighty, and many noble, who will 
not be admonished — but which makes these 
poor to be rich in faith, and heirs of that 
kingdom which God hath prepared for those 
who love him. 

We know not, if any who is now present, 
has ever felt the charm of an act of in- 
tercourse with a Christian among the poor 
— with one, whose chief attainment is, that 
he knows the Bible to be true ; and that his 
heart, touched and visited by a consenting 
movement to its doctrine, feels it to be pre- 
cious. We shall be disappointed, if the 
very exterior of such a man do not bear 
the impress of that worth and dignity 
which have been stamped upon his charac- 
ter — -if, in the very aspect and economy of 
his household, the traces of his superiority 
are not to be found — if the promise, even 
of the life that now is, be not conspicuously 
realized on the decent sufficiency of his 
means, and the order of his well-conditioned 
family — if the eye of tasteful benevolence 
be not regaled by the symptoms of com- 
fort and cheerfulness which are to be seen 
in his lowly habitation. And we shall be 
greatly disappointed, if, after having sur- 
vived the scoff of companions, and run 
through the ordeal of nature's enmity, he 
do not earn, as the fruits of the good con- 
fession that he witnesses among his neigh- 
bours, the tribute of a warm and willing 
cordiality from them all — if, while he lives, 
he do not stand the first in estimation, and 
when he dies, the tears and acknowledg- 
ments of acquaintances, as well as of kins- 
folk do not follow him to his grave — if, 
even in the hearts of the most unholy 
around him, an unconscious testimony is 
not borne to the worth of holiness, so as to 
make even this world's honour one of the 
ingredients in the portion of the righteous. 
But these are the mere tokens and visible 
accompaniments of Christian excellence — 
the passing efflorescence of a growth that 
is opening and maturing for eternity. To 
behold this excellence in all its depth, and 
in all its solidity, you must examine his 
mind, and there see the vastly higher ele- 
ments, with which it is conversant, than 
those among which the children of this 
world are grovelling : there see how, in the 
hidden walk of the inner man, he treads a 
more elevated path than is trodden either 
by the daughters of gaiety, or the sons of 
ambition ; there see how the whole great- 
ness and imagery of heaven are present to 
his thoughts, and what a reach and noble- 
ness of conception have gathered upon his 
soul, by his daily approaches to heaven's 
sanctuary. He lives in a cottage ; and yet 
he is a king and priest unto God. He is 
fixed for life to the ignoble drudgery of a 
workman, and yet he is on the full march 
to a blissful immortality. He is a child in 



the mysteries of science, but familiar with 
greater mysteries. That preaching of the 
cross, which is foolishness to others, he feels 
to be the power of God, and the wisdom of 
God. That faithfulness which annexes to 
all the promises of the Gospel — that righ- 
teousness which is unto the believer — that 
fulness in Christ, out of which the sup- 
plies of light and of strength are ever made 
to descend on the prayers of all who put 
their trust in him — that wisdom of princi- 
ple, and wisdom of application, by which, 
through his spiritual insight into his Bible, 
he is enabled both to keep his heart, and 
to guide the movements of his history, — 
these are his treasures — these are the ele- 
ments of the moral wealth, by which he is 
far exalted above the monarch, who stalks 
his little hour of magnificence on earth, and 
then descends a ghost of departed great- 
ness into the land of condemnation. He is 
rich, just because the word of Christ dwells 
in him richly in all wisdom. He is great, 
because the Spirit of glory and of God rests 
upon him. 

So that, the same conclusion comes back 
upon us with mightier emphasis than be- 
fore, If a poor child be capable of being 
thus transformed, how it should move the 
heart of a city philanthropist, when he 
thinks of the amazing extent of raw mate- 
rial, for this moral and spiritual manufac- 
ture that is on every side of him — when he 
thinks, that in going forth on some Chris- 
tian enterprise among a population, he is, 
in truth, walking among the rudiments of a 
state that is to be everlasting — that out of the 
most loathsome and unseemly abodes, a 
glory can be extracted, which will weather 
all the storms, and all the vicissitudes of 
this world's history — that in the filth and 
raggedness of a hovel, that is to be found, 
on which all the worth of heaven, as well 
as all the endurance of heaven, can be im- 
printed — that he is, in a word, dealing in 
embryo with the elements of a great and 
future empire, which is to rise, indestructi- 
ble and eternal, on the ruins of all that is 
earthly, and every member of which shall 
be a king and a priest for evermore. 

And before I pass on to the application 
of these remarks, let me just state, that the 
great instrument for thus elevating the 
poor, is that Gospel of Jesus Christ, which 
may be preached unto the poor. It is the 
doctrine of his cross finding an easier 
admission into their hearts, than it does 
through those barriers of human pride, and 
human resistance, which are often reared 
on the basis of literature. Let the testi- 
mony of God be simply taken in, that on 
his own Son he has laid the iniquities of us 
all — and from this point does the humble 
scholar of Christianity pass unto light, and 
enlargement, and progressive holiness. On 
the reception of this great truth, there 



454 



ON THE ADVANTAGES OF CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, &C. 



[SERM. 



hinges the emancipation of his heart from a 
thraldom which represses all the spiritual 
energies of those who live without hope, 
and, therefore, live without God in the 
world. It is guilt — it is the sense of his 
awakened and unexpiated guilt; which 
keeps man at so wide a distance from the 
God whom he has offended. Could some 
method be devised, by which God, jealous 
of his honour, and man jealous of his safe- 
ty, might be brought together on a firm 
ground of reconciliation— it would trans- 
late the sinner under a new moral influence, 
to the power of which, and the charm of 
which he, before, was utterly impractica- 
ble. Jesus Christ died, the just for the un- 
just, to bring us unto God. This is a truth, 
which, when all the world shall receive it, 
all the world will be renovated. Many do 
not see how a principle, so mighty in ope- 
ration, should be enveloped in a proposi- 
tion so simple of utterance. But let a man, 
by his faith in this utterance, come to know 
that God is his friend, and that heaven is 
the home of his fondest expectation ; and 
in contact with such new elements as these, 
he will evince the reach, and the habit, and 
the desire of a new creature. It is this 
doctrine which is the alone instrument of 
God for the moral transformation of our 
species. When every demonstration from 
the chair of philosophy shall fail, this will 
achieve its miracles of light and virtue 
among the people — and however infidelity 
may now deride — or profaneness may now 
lift her appalling voice upon our streets — 
or licentiousness may now offer her sicken- 
ing spectacles — or moral worthlessness may 
have now deeply tainted the families of 
our outcast and long-neglected population, 
— however unequal may appear the con- 
test with the powers and the principles of 
darkness — yet let not the teachers of righ- 
teousness abandon it in despair ; God will 
bring forth judgment unto victory, and on 
the triumphs of the word of his own testi- 
mony, will he usher in the glory of the lat- 
ter days. 

There is one kind of institution that 
never has been set up in a country, with- 
out deceiving and degrading its people ; and 
another kind of institution that never has 
been set up in a country, without raising 
both the comfort and the character of its 
iamilies. We leave it to the policy of our 
sister kingdom, by the pomp and the 
pretension of her charities, to disguise the 
wretchedness which she cannot do away. 
The glory of Scotland lies in her schools. 
Out of the abundance of her moral and 
literary wealth, that wealth which com- 
munication cannot dissipate — that wealth, 
which its possessor may spread and multi- 
ply among thousands, and yet be as affluent 



as ever, that wealth which grows by com- 
petition, instead of being exhausted, this is 
what, we trust, she will ever be ready to 
bestow on all her people. Silver and gold 
she may have none — but such as she has 
she will give — she will send them to school. 
She cannot make pensioners of them, but 
will, if they like, make scholars of them. 
She will give them of that food by which 
she nurses and sustains all her offspring — 
by which she renders wise the very poorest 
of her children— by which, if there be truth 
in our text, she puts into many a simple 
cottager, a glory surpassing that of the 
mightiest potentates in our world. To hold 
out any other boon, is to hold out a pro- 
mise which she and no country in the uni- 
verse, can ever realize — it is to decoy, and 
then most wretchedly to deceive — it is to 
put on a front of invitation, by which num- 
bers are allured to hunger, and nakedness, 
and contempt. It is to spread a table, and 
to hang out such signals of hospitality, as 
draw around it a multitude expecting to be 
fed, and who find that they must famish 
over a scanty entertainment. A system 
replete with practical mischief can put on 
the semblance of charity, even as Satan, 
the father of all lying and deceitful pro- 
mises, can put on the semblance of an an- 
gel of light. But we trust, that the country 
in which we live will ever be preserved It 
from the cruelty of its tender mercies — 
that she will keep by her schools, and her 
Scriptures, and her moralizing process ; and 
that, instead of vainly attempting so to 
force the exuberance of Nature, as to meet 
and satisfy the demands of a population 
whom she has led astray, she will make it 
her constant aim so to exalt her population, 
as to establish every interest that belongs 
to them, on the foundation of their own 
worth and their own capabilities — that 
taunted, as she has been, by her contemp- 
tuous neighbour, for the poverty of her 
soil, she will at least prove, by deed and by 
example, that it is fitted to sustain an erect, 
and honorable, and high-minded peasantry; 
and leaving England to enjoy the fatness i 
of her own fields, and a complacency with 
her own institutions, that we shall make a 
clean escape from her error, and never 
again be entangled therein— that unseduced 
by the false lights of a mistaken philanthro- 
py, and mistaken patriotism, we shall be 
enabled to hold on in the way of our an- 
cestors ; to ward off every near and threat- 
ening blight from the character of our be- 
loved people; and so to labour with the |j 
manhood of the present, and the boyhood [ 
of the coming generation, as to enrich our fl 
land with that wisdom which is more pre- j 
cious than gold, and that righteousness 
which exalteth a kingdom. 

■ . ,; : " ! v/? %<« v. ' % 



xiv.l 



ON THE DUTY AND THE MEANS OF, &C. 



455 



SERMON XIV. 
On the Duty and the Means of Christianizing our Home Population. 
"And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature."— Mark xvi. 15. 



Christianity proceeds upon the native 
indisposition of the human heart to its truths 
and its lessons — and all its attempts for the 
establishment of itself in the world are made 
upon this principle. It never expects that 
men will, of their own accord, originate that 
movement by which they are to come in 
contact with the faith of the Gospel ; and, 
therefore, instead of waiting till they shall 
move toward the Gospel, it has been pro- 
vided, from the first, that the Gospel shall 
move towards them. The Apostles did not 
set up their stationary college at Jerusalem, 
in the hope of embassies from a distance 
to inquire after the recent and wondrous 
revelation that had broke upon the world. 
But they had to go forth, and to preach 
among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 
And, in like manner, it never was looked 
for, that men, in the ardour of their curi- 
osity, or desire after the way of salvation, 
were to learn the language of the Apostles, 
that they might come and hear of it at their 
mouth. But the Apostles were miraculously 
gifted with the power of addressing all in 
their own native language — and when thus 
furnished, they went actively and aggres- 
sively about among them. It is no where 
supposed that the demand for Christianity 
is spontaneously, and in the first instance, 
to arise among those who are not Chris- 
tians; but it is laid upon those who are 
Christians, to go abroad, and, if possible, to 
awaken out of their spiritual lethargy, those 
who are fast asleep in that worldliness, 
which they love, and from which, without 
some external application, there is no ra- 
tional prospect of ever arousing them. The 
dead mass will not quicken into sensibility 
of itself; and, therefore, unless some cause 
of fermentation be brought to it from with- 
out, will it remain in all the sluggishness of 
its original nature. For there is an utter 
diversity between the article of Christian 
instruction, and the articles of ordinary 
merchandise. For the latter there is a de- 
mand, to which men are natively and ori- 
ginally urged by hunger or by thirst, or by 
the other physical sensations and appetites 
of their constitution. For the former there 
is no natural appetite. It is just as necessary 
to create a spiritual hunger, as it is to af- 
ford a spiritual refreshment ; and so from 
the very first, do we find, that for the spread 
of Christianity in the world, there had to be 
not an itinerancy on the part of inquirers, 
but a busy, active, and extended itinerancy 
on the part of its advocates and its friends. 



Now, those very principles which were 
so obviously acted on at the beginning, are 
also the very principles that, in all ages of 
the church, have characterized its evangel- 
izing processes. The Bible Society is now 
doing, by ordinary means, what was done 
by the miracle of tongues, in the days of 
the Apostles — enabling the people of all na 
tions to read, each in their own tongue, tne 
wonderful works of God. And the Mis 
sionary Societies are sending forth, not in- 
spired Apostles, gifted with tongues, but the 
expounders of apostolical doctrine, learned 
in tongues, over the face of the globe. They 
do not presume upon such a taste for the 
Gospel in heathen lands, as that the people 
there shall traverse seas and continents, or 
shall set themselves down to the laborious 
acquisition of some Christian language, that 
they might either have access to Scripture, 
or the ability of converse with men that are 
skilled in the mysteries of the faith. But 
this taste which they do not find, they ex- 
pect to create ; and for this purpose, is there 
now an incessant application to Pagan 
countries, of means and instruments from 
without, and many are the lengthened and 
the hazardous journies which have been 
undertaken — and voyages of splendid en- 
terprise have recently been crowned with 
splendid moral achievements; insomuch, 
that even the ferocity and licentiousness of 
the savage character have given way under 
the power of the truth; and lands, that 
within the remembrance of many now, 
alive, rankled with the worst abominations 
of idolatry, have now exchanged them for 
the arts and the decencies of civilization ; 
for village schools, and Christian Sabbaths, 
and venerable pastors, who first went forth 
as missionaries, and, as the fruits of their 
apostolic labour, among these outcast wan- 
derers, can now rejoice over holy grand- 
sires, and duteous children, and all that can 
gladden the philanthropic eye, in the peace, 
and purity, and comfort of pious families. 

Now, amid the splendour and the interest 
of these more conspicuous operations, it is 
often not adverted to, how much work of 
a missionary character is indispensable for 
perpetuating, and still more for extending 
Christianity at home — how families, within 
the distance of half a mile, may lapse, with- 
out observation or sympathy on our part, 
into a state of practical heathenism — how, 
within less than an hour's walk, hundreds 
may be found, who morally and spiritually 
live at as wide a separationfrom the Gospel 



458 



ON THE DUTY 



AND MEANS OF 



[SERM 



and all its ordinances, as do the barbarians 
of another continent — how, in many of our 
crowded recesses, the families, which, out of 
sight, and out of Christian sympathy, have 
accumulated there, might, at length, sink 
and settle down into a listless, and lethar- 
gic, and to all appearance, impracticable 
population — leaving the Christian teacher 
as much to do with them as has the first 
missionary when he touches on a yet un- 
broken shore. It is vain to expect, that 
by a proper and primary impulse originat- 
ing with themselves, those aliens from 
Christianity will go forth on the inquiry 
after it. The messengers of Christianity 
must go forth upon them. Many must go 
to and fro amongst the streets, and the lanes, 
and those deep intricacies that teem with 
human life, to an extent far beyond the eye 
or imagination of the unobservant passen- 
ger, if we are to look for the increase either 
of a spiritual taste, or of scriptural know- 
ledge among the families. That mass which 
is so dense of mind, and, therefore, so dense 
of immortality, must be penetrated in the 
length and in the breadth of it ; and then 
many will be found, who, however small 
their physical distance from the sound of 
the Gospel, stand at as wide a moral dis- 
tance therefrom, as do the children of the 
desert, and to overpass this barrier, to send 
out upon this outfield, such ministrations 
as might reclaim its occupiers to the habits 
and the observations of a Christian land, to 
urge and obtrude, as it were, upon the no- 
tice of thousands, what, without such an 
advancement, not one of them might have 
moved a footstep in quest of— these are so 
many approximations, that, to all intents 
and purposes, have in them the charac- 
ter, and might, with the blessing of God, 
have also the effect of a missionary enter- 
prise. 

When we are commanded to go into all 
the world, and preach the Gospel to every 
creature, our imagination stretches forth be- 
yond the limits of Christendom; and we 
advert not to the millions who are within 
these limits, nay, within the sight of Chris- 
tian temples, and the sound of Sabbath bells, 
yet who never heard the Gospel of Jesus 
Christ. They live to manhood, and to old 
age, deplorably ignorant of the way of sal- 
vation, and in ignorance, too, not the less 
deplorable than it is wilful. It is this which 
so fearfully aggravates their guilt, that on. the 
very confines of light, th'ey remain in dark- 
ness : and thereby prove, that it is a darkness 
which they love, and which they choose to 
persist in. Thus it will be found more 
tolerable for the heathen abroad, than for 
the heathen at home ; and therefore it is, 
that for the duty of our text, the wilds of 
Pagan idolatry, or of Mahometan delusion, 
are not the only theatres— that for its full 
performance, it is not enough that we equip 



the missionary , vessel, and go in quest of 
untaught humanity at a distance, and hold 
converse with the men of other climes, and 
of other tongues, and rear on some barba- 
rous shore, the Christianized village, as an 
outpost in that spiritual warfare, by which 
we hope, at length, to banish depravity and 
guilt, even from the farthest extremities of 
our species. These are noble efforts, and 
altogether worthy of being extended and 
multiplied a hundred fold. But they are not 
the only efforts of Christian philanthropy ; 
nor can they be sustained as a complete 
discharge from the obligation of preaching 
the Gospel to every creature under heaven. 
For the accomplishment of this, there must 
not only be a going forth on the vast and 
untrodden spaces that are without; there 
must be a filling up of the numerous and 
peopled vacancies that are within — a busy, 
internal locomotion, that might circulate, 
and disperse, and branch off to the right and 
to the left, among the many thousand fami- 
lies which are at hand : And thoroughly to 
pervade these families; to make good a 
lodgment in the midst of them, for the 
nearer or the more frequent ministrations 
of Christianity than before ; to have gained 
welcome for the Gospel testimony into their 
houses, and, in return, to have drawn any 
of them forth to attendance on the place of 
Sabbath and of solemn services ; this, also, 
is to act upon our text, this is to do the part, 
and to render one of the best achievements 
of a missionary. 

"How can they believe," says Paul, 
" without a preacher," — and " how can they 
preach, except they be sent?" To make 
sure this process, there must be a juxtapo- 
sition between him who declares the word, 
and them who are addressed by it ; but to 
make good this juxtaposition, the Apostle 
never imagines that alienated man is, of his 
own accord, to move towards the preacher 
— and therefore, that the preacher must be 
sent, or must move towards him. And, per- 
haps, it has not been adverted to, that in 
the very first steps of this approximation, 
there is an encouragement for going on- 
ward, and for plying the families of a city 
population with still nearer and more be- 
setting urgencies than before. It is not 
known how much the very juxtaposition ot 
an edifice for worship, tells upon the church- 
going habit of the contiguous householders ; 
how many there are who will not move at 
the sound of a distant bell, that with almost 
mechanical sureness, will go forth and min- 
gle with the stream of passengers who are 
crowding the way to a place that is at hand 
— how children, lured, perhaps, at the first, 
by curiosity, are led so to reiterate their at- 
tendance, as to be landed in a most precious 
habit for youth and for manhood — how this 
tendency spreads by talk, and sympathy, 
and imitation, through each little vicinity ; 



CHRISTIANIZING OUR HOME POPULATION. 457 



XIV.] 

and thus, in groups, or in clusters, might 
adjoining families be gained over to the or- 
dinances of religion — how the leaven, when 
once set a-going, might spread by the fer- 
mentation of converse, and mutual senti- 
ment, through the whole lump ; till over the 
face of a whole city department, the Chris- 
tian fabric, which stands conspicuously in 
the midst of it, and whither its people are 
rung every Sabbath, to the ministrations of 
the Gospel, might come to be its place of 
general repair ; and attendance there be at 
length proceeded on as one of the decencies 
of its established observation. Some of the 
influences in this process may appear slight 
or fanciful to the superficial eye ; and yet 
they are known and familiarly known, to 
be of powerful operation. 

You must surely be aware, that it makes 
all the practical difference in the world, to 
the retail and custom even of an ordinary 
shop, should it deviate, by a very small 
hairbreadth, from the minutest convenience 
of the public— should it retire, by ever so 
little from the busy pavement, or have to be 
ascended by two or three steps, or require 
the slightest turn and change of direction 
from the beaten path which passengers do 
inveterately walk in. And human nature 
on a week-day, is human nature on the 
Sabbath. There is no saying on how slight 
or trivial a circumstance it may be made to 
turn ; and odd as the illustration may ap- 
pear, we feel confident that we have not, at 
present, either a profound or a pious hearer, 
who will undervalue one single stepping- 
stone, by which a hearer more might be 
brought to the house of God — who will de- 
spise any of the means, however humble, 
that bring a human creature within the 
reach of that word, which is able to sanc- 
tify and save him — who will forget the 
wonted style of God's administrations, by 
which, on these minutest incidents of life, 
the greatest events of history are oft sus- 
pended — or, who will deny that the same 
Being, who, by the flight of a single bird, 
turned the pursuers of Mahomet away from 
him, and so spared the instrument by which 
a gross and grievous superstition hath found 
an ascendency over millions of immortal 
spirits, that he can enlist in the cause of his 
own Son, even the least and slightest fa- 
miliarities of human practice; and with 
links, which in themselves are exceeding 
small, can fasten and uphold the chain, 
which runs through the earthly pilgrimage 
of man, and reaches to his eternity. 

But after all, though local conveniency 
! may allure, in the first instance, to the house 
of God, local conveniency will not detain 
the attendance of multitudes, unless there 
be a worth and a power in the services 
which are rendered there — unless there be 
a moral earnestness in the heart of the 
preacher, which may pour forth a* sympa- 
3M 



thy with itself through the hearts of a 
listening congregation — unless, acquitting 
himself as an upright minister of the New 
Testament, he expound with faithfulness 
and some degree of energy, those truths 
which are unto salvation ; and so distribute 
among his fellow-sinners, the alone substan- 
tial and satisfying food of the soul — unless 
such a demonstration be given of the awful 
realities in which we deal, as to awaken in 
many bosoms the realizing sense of death, 
and of the judgment-seat— and above all, 
unless the demands of the law, with its ac- 
companying severities and terrors, be so 
urged on the conviction of guilty man, as to 
make it fall with welcome upon his ear, 
when told, that unto him a Saviour has been 
born. These are the alone elements of a 
rightful and well-earned popularity. Elo- 
quence may dazzle — and argument may 
compel the homage of its intellectual admir- 
ers — and fashion may even, when these are 
wanting, sustain through its little hour of 
smile and sunshine, a complacent attend- 
ance on the reigning idol of the neighbour- 
hood — but it is only if armed with the pan- 
oply of Scriptural truth, that there will 
gather and adhere to him a people who 
hunger for the bread of life, and who make 
a business of their eternity. To fill the 
church well, we must fill the pulpit well, 
and see that the articles of the peace-speak- 
ing blood, and the sanctifying Spirit, are 
the topics that be dearest to the audience, 
and on which the Christian orator who ad- 
dresses them most loves to expatiate. These 
form the only enduring staple of good and 
vigorous preaching ; and unless they have 
a breadth, and a prominency, and a fond 
reiteration in the sermons that shall be de- 
livered from the place where we now 
stand,* they either will not, or ought not 
to be listened to. 

Yet grieved and disappointed should we 
be, did he confine himself to Sabbath minis- 
trations — did he not go forth, and become 
the friend and the Christian adviser of all 
who dwell within the limits of his vineyard 
— did he not act the part of an Apostle 
among you, from house to house, and vary 
the fatigue of his preparations for the pul 
pit, by a daily walk amongst the ignorant, 
or the sick, or the sorrowful, or the dying. 
It is your part to respect, as you would a 
sanctuary, that solitude to which, for hours 
together, he should commit himself, in the 
work of meditating the truths of salvation • 
and it is his part to return your delicacy by 
his labours of love, by the greetings of his 
cordial fellowship, by his visits of kindness. 
It is a wrong imagination on the side of a 



* This Sermon was preached at the opening of 
a city chapel, which has a local district assigned to 
it, and whose rule of seat-letting is on the territorial 
principle. 



453 



ON THE DUTY AND THE MEANS OF 



[SERM. 



people, when they look on the Sabbath for 
a vigorous exposition of duty or doctrine, 
from him whom they tease, and interrupt, 
and annoy, through the week ; and it is a 
wrong imagination on the side of a pastor, 
when looking on the church as the sole 
arena of his usefulness, he does not relax 
the labour of a spirit that has been much 
exercised on the great topics of the Chris- 
tian ministry, by frequent and familiar in- 
tercourse among those, whom, perhaps, he 
has touched or arrested by his Sabbath de- 
monstrations. You ought to intrude not 
upon his arrangements, and his studies; 
but he ought, in these arrangements, to 
provide the opportunities of ample con- 
verse with every spiritual patient, with 
every honest inquirer. You should be 
aware of the distinction that he makes be- 
tween that season of the day which is set 
apart for retirement, and that season of the 
day which lies open to the duty of holding 
courteous fellowship with all ; and of hiding 
not himself from his own flesh. It is the 
gross insensibility which obtains to the pri- 
vileges both of a sacred and literary order — 
it is the disturbance of a perpetual inroad 
on that prophet's chamber, which ought, at 
all times, to be a safe retreat of contempla- 
tion — it is the incessant struggle that must 
be made for a professional existence, with 
irksome application, and idle ceremony, and 
even the urgencies of friendship ; these are 
sufficient to explain those pulpit imbecili- 
ties, of which many are heard to complain, 
while themselves they help to create them. 
And, therefore, if you want to foster the 
energies of your future clergyman ; if you 
would co-operate with him in those mental 
labours, by which he provides through the 
week for the repast of your Sabbath festi- 
val ; if it is your desire that an unction and 
a power shall be felt in all his pulpit minis- 
trations ; if here you would like to catch a 
glow of heaven's sacredness, and receive 
that fresh and forcible impulse upon your 
spirits, which might send you forth again 
with a redoubled ardour of holy affection 
and zeal on the business of life, and make 
you look and long for the coming Sabbath, 
as another delightful resting-place on your 
journey towards Zion — then suffer him to 
breathe, without molestation, in that pure 
and lofty region, where he might inhale a 
seraphic fervency, by which to kindle among 
his hearers his own celestial fire, his own 
noble enthusiasm. If it be this, and not the 
glee of companionship, or the drudgeries 
of ordinary clerkship that you want from 
your minister, then leave, I beseech you, 
his time in his own hand, and hold his asy- 
lum to be inviolable. 

But, we trust, that from this asylum his 
excursions will be frequent; and sure we 
are, that nought but an affectionate forth- 
going is necessary on his part, that he may 



have a warm and a willing reception upon 
yours. It is utterly a mistake, that any 
population, whatever be their present habits, 
will discourage the approaches of a Chris- 
tian minister to their families. It is a par- 
ticularly wrong imagination, that in cities 
there is a hard or an insolent defiance 
among the labouring classes, which no as- 
siduities of service or of good- will on the 
part of their clergyman can possibly over- 
come. Let him but try Avhat their tem- 
perament is in this matter, and he wi]l find 
it in every way as courteous and inviting, 
as among the most primitive of our Scottish 
peasantry. Let him be but alert to every call 
of threatening disease among his people, 
and the ready attendant upon every death- 
bed — let him ply not his fatiguing, but his 
easy and most practicable rounds of visita- 
tion in the midst of 'them — let him be zeal- 
ous for their best interests, and not in the 
spirit of a fawning obsequiousness, but in 
that of a manly, intelligent, and honest 
friendship, let him stand forth as the guar- 
dian of the poor, the guide and the counsel- 
lor of their children ; it is positively not in 
human nature to withstand the charm and 
the power which lie in such unwearied 
ministrations; and if visibly prompted by 
the affinity that there is in the man's heart 
for his fellows of the species, there will, by 
a law of the human constitution, be an affi- 
nity in theirs towards him, which they can- 
not stifle, though they would; and they 
will have no wish to stifle it. 

It is to this principle, little as it has been 
recognised, and still less as it has been pro- 
ceeded on, it is to this that we confide the 
gathering at length of a congregation within 
these walls, and that too from the vicinities 
by which we are immediately surrounded. 
That the chapel will be filled at the very 
outset, from the district which has been as- 
signed to it, we have no expectation. But 
we do fondly hope, as the fruit of his un- 
wearied services, that its minister will draw 
the kind regards of the people after him ; 
that an impression will be made by his 
powerful and reiterated addresses in the 
bosom of their families, which may not 
stop there ; that the man who prays at every 
funeral, and sits by every dying bed, and 
seizes every opening for Christian useful- 
ness that is afforded to him by the visita- 
tions of Providence on the houses of the 
surrounding neighbourhood, and who, while 
a fit companion for the great in his vine- 
3^ard, is a ready, and ever accessible friend 
to the poorest of them all ; it is utterly im- 
possible, that such a man, after his work of 
varied and active benevolence, will have 
nought to address on the Sabbath but empty 
walls. After being the eye-witness of what 
he does, there will spring up a most natural 
desire, and that cannot be resisted, to hear 
what he says. It is not yet known how 



XIV.] 



CHRISTIANIZING OUR 



HOME POPULATION. 



459 



much such attentions as these, kept up, and 
made to play in busy and constant recurrence 
upon one local neighbourhood ; it is not yet 
known how much and how powerfully they 
tell in drawing the hearts of the people to- 
wards him who faithfully and with honest 
friendship, discharges them. They will 
make the pulpit which he fills a common 
centre of attraction to the whole territory 
over which he expatiates ; and we need not, 
that we may see exemplified in human so- 
ciety the worth and importance of the pas- 
toral relationship, we need not go alone 
among the sequestered vales, or the far and 
upland retreats of our country parishes. It 
is not a local phenomenon dependent on 
geography. It is a general one, dependent 
on the nature of man ; on those laws of the 
heart, which no change of place or of cir- 
cumstances can obliterate. To gain the 
moral ascendency of which we speak, it is 
enough if the upright and laborious clergy- 
man have human feelings and human fami- 
lies on every side of him. It signifies not 
where. Give him Christian kindness, and 
this will pioneer a way for him amongst all 
the varieties of place and of population. 
Beside the smoke, and the din, and the diz- 
zying wheel of crowded manufactories, will 
he find as ready an introduction for himself 
and for his office, as if his only walk had 
been among peaceful hamlets, and with 
nought but the romance and the rusticity 
of nature spread out before him. It is ut- 
terly a wrong imagination, and in the face 
both of experience and of prophecy, that in 
towns there is an impracticable barrier 
against the capabilities and the triumphs of 
the Gospel — that in towns the cause of hu- 
man amelioration must be abandoned in 
despair — that in towns it is not by the archi- 
tecture of chapels, but by the architecture 
of prisons, and of barracks, and of bride- 
wells, we are alone to seek for the protec- 
tion of society — that elsewhere a moralizing 
charm may go forth among the people, from 
village schools and Sabbath services, but 
that there is a hardihood and a ferocity in 
towns, which must be dealt with in another 
way, and against which all the artillery of 
the pulpit is feeble as infancy — that a foul 
and feverish depravity has settled there, 
which no spiritual application will ever ex- 
tinguish : for amid all the devismgs for the 
peace and order of our community, do we 
find it to be the shrewd and sturdy appre- 
hension of many, that all which can be 
achieved in our overgrown cities, is by the 
strength of the secular arm ; that a stern 
and vigorous police will do more for public 
morals, than a whole band of ecclesiastics ; 
that a periodical execution will strike a 
more salutary terror into the hearts of the 
multitude, than do the dreadest fulminations 
of the preacher's voice; and this will ex- 
plain the derision and the distrust where- 



with that argument is listened to, which 
goes to set forth the efficacy of Christian 
doctrine, or to magnify the office of him 
who delivers it. 

We can offer no computation that will 
satisfy such antagonists as these, of the im- 
portance of Christianity even to the civil 
and the temporal well-being of our species ; 
and we shall, therefore, plead the authority 
of our text, for extending its lessons to every 
creature — for going forth with it to every 
haunt and every habitation where immortal 
beings are to be found — for not merely car- 
rying it beyond the limits of Christendom, 
but for filling up with instruction the many 
blank, and vacant, and still unoccupied 
places, teeming with population, that, even 
within these limits have not been overtaken. 
What ! shall we be told, that if there is a 
man under heaven, whom the Gospel has 
not yet reached, it is but obedience to a last 
and solemn commandment, when the mis- 
sionary travels even to the farthest verge of 
our horizon, that he may bear it to his door 
— shall we be told of the thousands who 
are beside us, that, though their souls are 
perishing for lack of knowledge, we might, 
without one care or one effort abandon 
them ? Are we to give up as desperate, the 
Christian reformation of our land, when we 
read of those mighty achievements, and 
those heavenly outpourings, by which even 
the veriest wilds of heathenism have been 
fertilized — or, with such an instrument to 
work by as that of the Gospel of Jesus 
Christ, which in the hands of the Spirit of 
God, hath wrought its miracles on the men 
of all ages, shall we forbear, as a hopeless 
enterprise, the evangelizing of our own 
homes, the eternal salvation of our own fa- 
milies? " Be of good cheer," says the Spirit 
to the apostle, "I have much people for 
thee in this city;" and that, a city, too, the 
most profligate and abandoned that ever 
flourished on the face of our world. And 
still the Lord's hand is not shortened, that 
it cannot save. Neither is his ear heavy, 
that it cannot hear. It is open as ever to 
the cry of your intercessions — and on these, 
we would devolve our cause. We entreat 
the fellowship of your prayers. We know, 
that all human exertion, and eloquence, and 
wisdom, are vain without them — that, lack- 
ing that influence, which is gotten down by 
supplications from on high, sermons are but 
high-sounding cymbals, and churches but 
naked architecture — that mere pains are of 
no avail, and that it only lies within the com- 
pass of pains and prayers, to do any thing. 

And we, indeed, have great reason for 
encouragement, when we think of the sub- 
ject of our message. When we are bidden 
in the text to preach, it is to preach the 
Gospel — it is to proclaim good news in the 
hearing of the people — it is to sound forth 
the glad tidings of great joy— it is to tell 



460 DISTINCTION BETWEEN KNOWLEDGE AND CONSIDERATION. [SERM. 



even the chief of sinners, that God is now 
willing to treat him as a sinner no longer ; 
that he invites him to all the honours of 
righteousness ; and that in virtue of a blood 
which cleanseth from all sin, and of an obe- 
dience, to the rewards of which he is freely 
and fully invited, there is not a guilty crea- 
ture in our world, who may not draw nigh. 
Should he who preaches within these walls, 
turn out the faithful and the energetic ex- 
pounder of this word of salvation — should 
the blessing of God be upon his ways, and 
that demonstration which cometh from on 
high, accompany his words— should he, filled 
with zeal in the high cause of your immor- 
tality, be instant among you in season, and 
out of season — and devoted to the work of 
his sacred ministry, he make it his single 
aim to gather in a harvest of unperishable 
spirits, that by him as an instrument of 
grace, have been rescued from hell, and 
raised to a blissful eternity — should this be 
indeed the high walk of his unremitting 



toil, and his unwearied perseverance — then, 
such is the power of the divine testimony, 
when urged out of the fulness of a believer's 
heart, and made to fall with the impression 
of his undoubted sincerity on those whom 
he addresses; that for ourselves we shall 
have no fear of a good and a glorious issue 
to this undertaking ; and, therefore, as Paul 
often cast the success of his labours on the 
prayers of them for whom he laboured, 
would I again entreat that your supplica- 
tions do ascend to the throne of grace for 
him who is to minister amongst you in 
word and in doctrine— that he may, indeed, 
be a pastor according to God's own heart, 
who shall feed a people here wnh know- 
ledge and with spiritual understanding— 
that the travail of his soul may be blest to 
the conversion of many sons and daughters 
unto righteousness — that he may prove a 
comfort to all your hearts, and a great pub- 
lic benefit to all your families. 



SERMON XV. 
On the Distinction between Knowledge and Consideration. 

; The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib : but Israel doth not know, my people doth no 

consider." — Isaiah 1. 3. 



It would appear, from this verse, that 
the children of Israel neither knew nor con- 
sidered—but still there is a distinction sug- 
gested by it between these two things. 
And in the book of the prophet Malachi, 
we have a similar distinction, when the 
Lord says to the priests, "If ye will not 
hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart." It 
is, in fact, possible for a man to do one of 
these things, and not to do the other. He 
may know the truth, and yet he may not 
consider it. He may hear, and yet not lay 
to heart. Nay, he may have heard of a 
particular doctrine so often as to have got 
it by heart, without ever laying it to heart. 
And this, we hold, to be the just and the 
applicable complaint that may be uttered of 
many professing Christians in our day. 

And thus it is. that we may gather the 
difference which there is between know- 
ledge and wisdom. The one is a specu- 
lative acquirement. The other is a practi- 
cal faculty or habit. By the latter, we turn 
to its right and profitable use the former. 
Thus it is, that there may be great folly 
along with great scholarship; and, on the 
other hand, may an unlettered mind be il- 
lustrious in wisdom. You have, perhaps, 
seen when there was great wealth, and yet, 
from the want of judicious management, 



great want of comfort in a family; and 
what stands in fine and beautiful contrast 
with this, you may have witnessed the union 
of very humble means, with such a skill 
and consideration in the guidance of them, 
as to have yielded a respectable appearance, 
and a decent hospitality, and the sufficien- 
cy of a full and regular provision. And so, 
with the treasures of intellect, the acquisi- 
tions of the mind, whereof one may be rich, 
being possessed of most ample materials in 
all knowledge and information, and yet 
have an ill-conditioned mind notwithstand- 
ing; and another destitute of all but the 
most common and elementary truths, may 
yet, by a wise application of them, have 
attained to the true light and harmony of 
the soul, and be in sound preparation both 
for the duties of time, and for the delights 
of eternity. 

All have so learned to number their days 
as to know the extreme limit of human 
life upon earth ; yet all have not so learn- 
ed to number their days as to apply their 
hearts unto wisdom. They are aware of 
their latter end, but they consider not their 
latter end. 

I. This distinction between knowledge 
and wisdom, is abundantly realized even 
on the field of earthly and of sensible ex- 



XV.] 



DISTINCTION BETWEEN KNOWLEDGE AND CONSIDERATION. 



461 



perience. The man of dissipation may 
have his eyes open to the ruin of character 
and of fortune that awaits him, yet the 
tyranny of his evil desires constrains him 
to a perseverance in the ways of wretched- 
ness. The man of indolence may foresee 
the coming bankruptcy that will ensue on 
the slovenly management of his affairs, yet 
there is a lethargy within that weighs him 
down to fatal inactivity. The man of 
prone and headlong irritation, may be 
able to discern the accumulating mischief 
that he raises against himself in the hos- 
tility of those who are around him, and 
may even look forward to the time when, 
deserted by the friendship of all, he shall 
live a neglected outcast from all human com- 
panionship, yet continue as before to be 
hurried away by the onward violence that 
seizes him. In all these instances, there is 
no want of knowledge in possession. But 
there is a want of knowledge in use, or 
knowledge in application. The unhappy 
man has the truth of the matter in his head. 
But he does not lay it with the authority of 
a commander upon his practice. The pre- 
sent urgency carries it over all thought of the 
future consequences. He has received the 
truth, but he does not give heed unto the 
truth. He does not charge it upon his at- 
tention, or give effectual warning of it to 
his fears, or to his sense of prudence and 
of interest. It is not of his ignorance that 
we complain, but of his inconsideration. 
And thus, apart from the things of spiritual 
contemplation altogether, and on the mere 
ground of every day life, with its passions 
and pursuits in this world, may the distinc- 
tion to which we now advert, be abundantly 
exemplified. 

II. But what we have now affirmed, even 
of those events and consequences that take 
place along the journey of this world, is 
still more strikingly apparent of that great 
event which marks its termination. There 
is not a human creature of most ordinary 
mind, and who hath overstepped the limits 
of infancy, that does not know of death, 
and with whom it does not rank among 
the most undoubted of the certainties that 
await him. And it is not only that of which 
he is most thoroughly assured ; but it is 
that of which, in the course of observation 
and history, he is most constantly remind- 
ed. And many are the aids and the accom- 
paniments which might serve to deepen his 
impression of it. The horror of every death 
that he witnesses ; and the pathos of every 
death which he deplores ; and the distress, 
even unto the measure of tragic sensibility, 
which is felt when some tie of near and 
affecting relationship is broken ; and every 
act of attendance on those last obsequies, 
when acquaintances meet to carry one of 
their number to his grave ; and the aspect 
of seriousness that gathers upon every 



inquiring neighbourhood, when the word 
spreads that some one of their friends is 
dying ; and the frequency of those funeral 
processions that pass along our streets, and 
so mingle the business of death with the 
moving throng of the people and the car- 
riages, which the business of life has press- 
ed into its service ; these are the remem- 
brances that ever and anon hold up the 
lesson of our mortality, and one might 
think, should effectually keep it from sink- 
ing for a single hour into oblivion. But 
how is it truly and experimentally ? That 
death of which we all know so well, is scarce- 
ly ever in our thoughts. The momentary 
touch of grief, and of seriousness, where- 
with we are at times visited, speedily goeth 
into utter dissipation. With as cheerful and 
assured footsteps, do we tread the face of 
this world, as if it were the scene of our 
immortality ; and the latter end of life is 
totally unseen in the obscure and undefined 
distance at which we have placed it, on the 
field of our contemplations. It argues for 
the strength of that recoil with which nature 
shrinks from the thought of its own dissolu- 
tion, that all these loud and repeated de- 
monstrations pass so unheeded by — and 
that walking though we be, over the accu- 
mulated ruins of so many generations, we 
nevertheless will talk as merrily, and lift up 
our heads as securely, as though beings 
who were to live for ever. It seems not 
to work the slightest abatement in the 
eagerness of man after this world's in- 
terests, that a few years will sweep them 
utterly away ; and when we look to the 
busy engrossment of all his faculties with 
the plans and the pursuits of earthliness, 
it is but too manifest, that it is one thing 
to know of death, and another to consider 
of it. 

This heedlessness of our latter end, is of 
a character still more obstinate and incura- 
ble than any such heedlessness as we have 
already quoted, of reputation or fortune in 
the world. It needs no impetuous appetite 
to overbear the thought of death ; for in 
the calm equanimity of many a sober and 
aged citizen, you will find him as pro- 
foundly asleep to the feeling of his own 
mortality, as he is to any of the feelings 
or instigations of licentiousness. It needs 
no overweighing indolence of tempera- 
ment to be all listless and unmoved by the 
fears of our coming death-bed ; for many 
are to be found, who consume every hour 
in the activities of business and of daring 
adventure, without one emotion of serious- 
ness on the awful catastrophe that awaits 
them. 

It needs no imprudence, or unguarded 
violence, to betray a man into the forget- 
fulness of death : for many is the cool and 
practised calculator, and many is the sage 
of tranquil philosophy, and many is the 



462 



DISTINCTION BETWEEN KNOWLEDGE AND CONSIDERATION. 



[SERM. 



crafty politician, who can look far into con- 
sequences, and is skilled in all the expe- 
dients of his vocation ; and of whom it may 
be said, that the mind of each is steeped in 
the oblivion of death. We are heedless of 
much that is before us, even in this world ; 
but as to its last and closing scene, there is 
a peculiar inveteracy of heedlessness that 
we do not have as to any of the other futu- 
rities of our earthly existence. Death is the 
stepping-stone between the two worlds ; and 
so it somewhat combines the palpable of 
matter, with the shadowy and the evanescent 
of spirit. It is the gateway to a land of 
mystery and of silence, and seems to gather 
upon it something of the visionary charac- 
ter which the things of faith have to the 
eye of the senses. It is not a thing unseen; 
but being an outlet to the region of invisi- 
bles, there settles upon it a degree of that 
faintness and obscurity wherewith the car- 
nal eye regards all that is told of the mat- 
ters of eternity. And so, amid all the va- 
rieties of temperament in our species, there 
is a universal heedlessness of death. It 
seems against the tendency of nature to 
think of it. There is an opposite bias that 
ever inclines us away from this dark con- 
templation, towards the warm and living 
realities of the peopled world around us. 
The mind refuses to dwell on that dreary 
abode of skulls and of sepulchres, and makes 
its willing escape from all this hideous im- 
agery, to society, and to business, and to the 
whole interest and variety of life. Instead 
of some mighty impulse being required to 
dispossess us of the thought, it costs an ef- 
fort of unnatural violence to uphold it in 
our bosoms. The thing is known, but it is 
not considered : and the giddy dance of life 
is carried onwards, as if there were no de- 
stroyer upon the way — the tide of human 
existence is borne as restlessly along, as if 
there were no grave to absorb it. 

This might serve to convince us, how 
unavailing is the mere knowledge, even of 
important truth, if not accompanied by the 
feeling, or the practical remembrance of it. 
The knowledge, in this case, only serves to 
aggravate our folly, and to bring, on the 
utter heedlessness of our lives, a more full 
and emphatic condemnation. And on the 
subject of death, we would ask, how is it 
that your fatal insensibility can be justified? 
Has God left this matter without a witness? 
Has he not strewed the whole path of your 
existence in the world with the mementos 
of its affecting termination ? Has he not 
pointed the eye of your experience to the 
agonies of many a death-bed, and brought 
it irresistibly down upon your convictions, 
that these are the very agonies through 
which you have to pass ? In every death 
of an acquaintance does he not lift a voice 
of warning unto yourselves; and when 
that acquaintance is a relative or a friend, 



does he not seek to grave upon your soft- 
ened heart the lesson of mortality in cha- 
racters of deeper remembrance? Has he not 
tried to find access for the truth, through 
the varied avenues of feeling, and of obser- 
vation, and of conscience ? And living, as 
you do, in the land of dying men, have you 
not seen enough of this world's changes to 
make the history of your life one continued 
sermon upon the grave ? God has not been 
wanting in those demonstrations of Provi- 
dence, which should have riveted a serious- 
ness upon your hearts, and transformed you 
out of the careless, and gay, and worldly 
creature that you still are. We protest, by 
the many sick-beds over which you have 
hung, and by the deaths which you have 
witnessed, and by the tears which you 
have shed over them, that you have long 
ago had enough to loosen your hold upon 
earth, and to break that accursed spell by 
which you are so bound to its lying vanities. 
You have enough to dislodge from your 
bosom the spirit of the god of this world ; 
and 0! therefore, that you were wise, that 
you understood these things, that you con- 
sidered your latter end. 

There is no topic on which the distinction 
that there is between knowledge and consi- 
deration stands more palpably before us 
than that of death. All are assured of its 
coming, yet how few so bethink, or so be- 
stir themselves, as to be prepared for its 
coming. The position which this event 
occupies in the line of our existence, gives 
to it a peculiar advantage for illustrating 
the distinction in question. It stands on 
the extreme horizon of what is sensible, 
and beyond it lie the dimness and the mys- 
tery of an untrodden land. On this side of 
it are the matters of experience. On the 
other side of it are the matters of faith. 
Now, it partakes with the one in the cer- 
tainty wherewith all must regard it ; and it 
partakes with the other in the nullity of its 
practical influence, over the vast majority 
of our species. As an object of knowledge, 
there belongeth to it the assurance of a most 
unquestioned truth ; as an object of consi- 
deration, there belongeth to it the airy light- 
ness of a vain and visionary fable. It is 
believed, but it is not minded ; and while, 
on the one hand, it ranks among those expe- 
rimental realities which are most assuredly 
known, it, on the other hand, ranks among 
those illusions of the fancy which are prac- 
tically and habitually disregarded. It stands 
forth'to the eye in all the plainness of ocu- 
lar demonstration, and yet with as little 
power as if it were a tale of necromancy. 
It is quite obvious, that in the things of 
faith, there is a want of ascendant power 
over the life of man ; and, to justify man, 
this has been ascribed to their want of evi- 
dence. But where is the want of evidence 
in death ? This is not a thing of faith, but 



DISTINCTION BETWEEN KNOWLEDGE AND CONSIDERATION 463 



XV.] 

a thing of observation; and makes it as 
clear as day, that even when the evidence 
is complete and irresistible, the effect may 
be as utterly unsubstantial, as if it were 
a thing of nought. This ought to alarm 
us. It should lead us to apprehend, that 
there was enough of argument, on the side 
even of what is spiritual and unseen, to con- 
demn our indifference to it. If the certain- 
ty of death do not move us, it may not be 
the uncertainty of what is on the other side 
of death, that can account for the sluggish- 
ness of our obstinate and unmoved car- 
nality. One thing is certain, that we can 
see an acquaintance fall into his grave, and 
yet continue to live here, as if this were 
our eternity. And does not this make it 
probable,that though that acquaintance were 
to rise again, and to tell us of the world of 
spirits upon which he had entered, we 
should be unaffected as before by the real 
eternity that is awaiting us 1 Christ says 
to us himself, that if we believe not Moses 
and the prophets, neither should we believe 
though one rose from the dead. This is 
the way in which we meet the demand of 
infidelity, for more of proof, and more of 
information. The fact is that thousands 
have died before us, and are still dying 
around us, and yet the heart of man re- 
mains unvisited by any practical sense of 
his mortality. And the presumption, there- 
fore, is, that though one of these thousands 
were to revive, and to re-appear amongst 
us, fraught with the tidings of heaven's 
glory, and hell's unutterable despair, we 
should still keep our ground against him, 
and the heart of man be unvisited as before 
by any practical sense of his immortality. 
It is not more of evidence that we want. 
There is as much as ought to convince 
us now — and if not convinced, there is as 
much as will condemn us afterwards. The 
cause of our irreligion is not that we could 
not know, but that we do not, and will not 
consider. 

This is a great practical use to which our 
insensibility about death is capable of being 
turned. It proves, that our insensibility 
about eternal things, may be due to some- 
thing else than to the defect of that evidence 
by which they are accompanied. It causes 
us to perceive, that a truth may be surely 
known, and yet not be pondered, or not be 
proceeded upon. Surely to know it is one 
thing — seriously to reflect upon it is an- 
other ; and thus it may be, that the irreligion 
of the world is due not to the want of a 
satisfying demonstration on God's part, for 
this might have excused us; but, to the 
want of right consideration on ours, and 
this is inexcusable. 

III. Let us now pass onwards, then, to 
the invisibles of faith — to those things which 
do not, like death, stand upon the confines 
of the spiritual region, but are wholly within 



I that region, and which man hath not seen 
by his eye, or heard by his ear — to the awful 
realities that will abide in deep and mysteri- 
ous concealment from us, so long as we are 
in the body, and which not till the body is 
dissolved, will stand in direct manifestation 
before us. This character of unseen and 
spiritual, is not confined to things future. 
There are things present which are spiritual 
also. There is a present Deity, who dwelleth 
in light, it is true, but it is light inaccessible 
— who is encompassed with glory, but it is 
glory which we, in the body, cannot ap- 
proach unto— who stands revealed to angels 
and adoring spirits ; but whom no man hath 
seen, neither can see. He is the King eter- 
nal and immortal, but he is also the King 
invisible — who, though not far from any 
one of us, is remote as infinity itself, from 
the ken of our earthly senses — and shrouded 
in the obscurity of his own unfathomable 
nature, is he so veiled and darkened from 
all human contemplation, that we cannot 
behold him. 

And yet, even of this great Spirit we may 
be said, in one sense, to know, however lit- 
tle it is that we may consider him. There 
are averments about God which we have 
long recognised, and ranked among our ad- 
mitted propositions, though we seldom re- 
cur to them in thought, and are never ade- 
quately impressed by them. We know, or 
think we know, that God is; and that all 
other existence is suspended upon his will; 
and that, were it not for his upholding arm, 
the whole of Nature would go into dissolu- 
tion ; and that while he sits in high authority 
over all worlds, there is not one individual 
member of his vast family, that is overlook- 
ed by him ; and, more particularly, that he 
looks with the eye of a wise and a watchful 
judge, into every heart, and every con- 
science ; and that he claims a right and a 
property in the services of all his creatures; 
and that he is more absolutely the owner 
and the master of them all, than is man of 
the machine that he hath made, and to 
whose touch all its movements are subordi- 
nate; and that he is a God of august and 
inviolable sacredness, in whose presence 
evil cannot dwell, and between the sanctity 
of whose nature and sin, there is a wide and 
implacable enmity ; and that he does not sit 
in lofty and remote indifference to the cha- 
racters of his children, but takes deep, and 
perpetual, and most vigilant concern in them 
all — loving their righteousness, hating their 
iniquity, treasuring their thoughts, and their 
purposes, and their doing, in the book of his 
remembrance ; and that, with a view to the 
manifestation of them, on that day, when 
time shall be no more, and each of his ac- 
countable offspring shall have their condi- 
tion awarded to them through eternity — 
when the mystery of God shall be finished, 
and the glory of his attributes shall be made 



48i 



DISTINCTION BETWEEN KNOWLEDGE AND CONSIDERATION. 



[sERM. 



to shine forth at the close and the consum- 
mation of all things. 

Now, most of these things you know, or 
profess to know. They are recognised by 
you as true propositions, and not to have 
them among the articles of your creed, 
would be deemed by you as monstrous and 
revolting infidelity. Most of you would 
shudder at the thought of an atheism, which 
could deny the existence of God, or of a 
blasphemy that could disown his govern- 
ment, or of a heresy that could profane his 
character by stripping it of its truth, and 
justice, and holiness. So dear, in fact, are 
your long-established notions of the Divini- 
ty, that you could not bear them to be med- 
dled with ; and would hold that man to be 
the enemy of your repose, who should offer 
to violate them. So that, there do exist in 
your mind certain positions which regard a 
Deity, the affirmative of which carries your 
consent, and the denial of which would 
painfully be offensive to you — and thus far 
may you be said to know God, and to be- 
lieve in him. 

Now, as a proof how distinct this know- 
ledge of God is from the consideration of 
him, I will venture to say, that even the 
first and simplest of all these propositions 
is, by many, unthought of for days and 
weeks together. The truth, that God is, 
which all here present would shudder to 
deny, is out of habitual regard, and habitual 
remembrance. It lies like a forgotten thing 
in some deep and latent depository; and as 
to its being brought forth of its hiding-place, 
for hourly use and meditation, this we never 
meet with, but among a saintly and selected 
few, who are indeed a very peculiar people. 
When God is acknowledged, we cannot lift 
the charge of theoretical atheism ; but when, 
along with this, God is unminded, surely 
then may we lift the charge of practical 
atheism. Now this is the very charge that 
we prefer against the vast majority of our 
world. They have a knowledge of God; but 
this, so far from extenuating their thought- 
lessness, brings upon it its most fearful ag- 
gravation. It is j ust because they stand pre- 
eminent among the creatures of our world, 
in the faculty of understanding God, that 
they also stand pre-eminent in the crime of 
their ungodliness. It is for this, that they 
suffer in the comparison with " the ox that 
knoweth his owner, and the ass that know- 
eth his master's crib ;" and what they have 
learned of God, or are capable of learning, 
will bring upon their heedlessness of him, 
and of his ways, its severest condemnation. 

It is, indeed, one of the most fearful mys- 
teries of the human spirit, that a truth 
which, of all others, most intimately con- 
cerns us, should yet, of all others, be the 
most gladly bidden away into oblivion — 
that, as rid of an unwelcome visitor, the 
mind of man is never more at ease, or in its 



kindred and rejoicing element, than when 
God is not in all his thoughts— that then it 
is, when, as broken loose from imprison- 
ment, the heart revels in its own desires, 
and securely blesses its deliverance from the 
hateful presence of one who constrained and 
overawed it — that the creature should thus 
hide itself, as it were, from the Creator, and 
in virtue of his perpetual recoil from the 
Being who formed, and who upholds him, 
should so keep up a perpetual distance from 
God — that wholly given over to the idolatry 
of the things that are made, the Maker 
should, to him, be little better than a non- 
entity, or a name ; this is the marvel of the 
strange and wayward nature that belongs 
to us, and may well lead us to apprehend t 
the visitation upon it of some sore leprosy, 
the shock of some great and total derange- 
ment. 

For what, truth of weightier import to us 
all than simply that there is a God — that 
all the busy and unceasing movements 
around us are suspended on the will of a 
living Sovereign — that those mighty forces 
which constantly uphold the play and the 
mechanism of things, are not the random 
energies of Nature that is unconscious ; but 
that one sitteth above, and wieldeth them all 
at his pleasure — that a powerful and a pre- 
siding intelligence hath originated all, and 
overrules all — and that while our only con- 
verse and concern are with the near and the 
visible, that are on every side of us, there is 
an unseen Spirit, to whom belongeth the 
mastery, and with whom alone it is that we 
have mainly and substantially to do? 

Now, how is it that man practically re- 
sponds to this real condition of his being? 
Tell me, from the intimate assurances of 
your own conscience, or tell me, from the 
broad and palpable character that sits upon 
the doings of your acquaintances, whether 
God hath the ascendency over them. Is ( 
there, all the day long, a felt solemnity on 
your spirits, because of God, which follows i 
you whithersoever you go, and causes you 
to walk with him in the world? Or, are 
you familiarized with the habit of submit- 
ting your will to his will? Or, have you 
ever, for an hour together, looked upon 
yourselves in the light of being the servants 
of another, and have accordingly run and 
laboured as at the bidding of that other? 
Or, utter strangers to this, do you not walk 
in the counsel of your own heart? Do you 
not move as independently, as if in your- 
self it was that you lived, and moved, and 
had your being? In the work that you 
prosecute, and the comforts that you enjoy, 
and even the obligations of which you ac- 
quit yourselves to relatives, and to friends, 
is there any fear of God before your eyes? 
—and is not the fear of disgrace from men, 
a far more powerful check upon your licen- 
tiousness, than the fear of damnation from 



XV.] 



DISTINCTION BETWEEN KNOWLEDGE AND CONSIDERATION. 



465 



him who is the judge and the discerner of 
men? The mind is ever crowded with 
thoughts, and wishes, and purposes, that 
pass in busy succession, through its cham- 
bers of imagery, and minister the food of its 
unremitting contemplations. Tell me how 
much of God and godliness there is in them 
all. Turn the inward survey upon your- 
selves, and report to us how much of this 
heavenly fruit groweth and flourisheth 
there. 6 you have but spied the nakedness 
of the land — God is unto you a wilderness, 
and your heart is to him a spiritual desola- 
tion ! 

This emptiness of a man's heart as to the 
recognition of God, runs throughout the 
whole of his history. He is engrossed with 
what is visible and secondary, and he thinks 
no farther. The sense of a present and pre- 
siding Deity, is habitually absent from his 
soul; and just because he will not stir him- 
self up to consideration, that he may lay 
hold of God, is he bounded, as if by an im- 
passable limit, to earth and to earthliness. 
It needs a force of thought and of reflection, 
to bear him across this barrier, which, whe- 
ther from indolence, or carnality, or a mis- 
giving conscience, he does not choose to 
put into operation ; and thus, does he live 
without God in the world. When he enjoys, 
it is without gratitude. When he labours, 
it is without the impulse of an obedient 
loyalty. When he admires, it is without 
carrying the sentiment upwardly unto hea- 
ven, whence all that is lovely on the face 
of our world, was strewn for its embellish- 
ment, and the delight of its beholders. And 
thus, may a traveller on his tour of recrea- 
tion, through some goodly land, be carried 
forward from scene to scene, till the whole 
landscape of an empire shall have passed 
behind him like a shifting panorama — and, 
as he eyes the beauteous succession of ver- 
dant fields, and massy foliage, and the many 
pictures of comfort or elegance in human 
habitations, and the rapid variety where- 
with, in the speed and the turning of his 
movements, he is, at one time, closed upon 
by the limits of a sweet and sequestered 
valley, and, at another, breaks out in full 
and open perspective, on the glories of half 
a province; why, may all the ecstacy he 
feels be lavished on the spectacles before 
him, without one thought of that master 
hand, which spread out the whole of this 
magnificence, and poured the tide of lustre 
over it. No piety may mingle with this 
contemplation; and not for the want of 
knowledge, but the want of thought, may 
there be as little of God in the eye of this 
raptured enthusiast, as in the brute uncon- 
scious gaze of the creature that hath no 
understanding. 

Now, this is God's controversy with man 
in the text. He there complains of our 
heedlessness. He feels himself slighted, 
3N 



that we so seldom think of him, and that 
he should be thus neglected and set at 
nought by his own offspring. And this in- 
consideration of ours, is matter of blame, 
just because it is a matter of wilfulness. 
Man has a voluntarj- control over his 
thoughts. He can turn and transfer them 
from one object of mental contemplation to 
another. He may think of God when he 
chooses. He may recal his scattered im- 
aginations, and summon all that is within 
him to an act of attendance upon God. He 
may bid his mind cease from its rambles, 
and its reveries, and lift itself up to the 
abode of the Eternal. He may lay an ar- 
rest on the processes of the inner man, and 
say to it, with authority, that now is the 
moment for an aspiration, or a solemn feel- 
ing towards God. He may repeat and mul- 
tiply this effort into a habit of seriousness. 
It may mix itself in with his ordinary busi- 
ness. It may accompany him on his walk, 
even through the streets of the crowded 
city. It may season the hours of his social 
fellowship ; and what, at first, is difficult, 
and irregular, and rare, may thus, by dint 
of perseverance, settle down into an habitual 
tendency. He may r at length, be familiar- 
ized to the thought of God, as his master 
and his owner ; and, at length, putting on 
the attitude of a daily and hourly obedience, 
as the eye of a servant looketh towards his 
master, so may his eye be ever towards 
God. This is not the attitude of nature, but 
it may be tried and practised, and, at length, 
effectually learned. But you will never 
reach it, unless you begin ; you will never 
succeed in it, unless you persevere. And, 
therefore, my plain advice to you is, that 
you now set to it in good earnest. Lay a 
mandate upon your thinking faculty, and 
send it heavenward to God. There is many 
a useless moment that may thus be turned 
to account — many an idle waste in our ex- 
istence, that may thus be reclaimed to sa- 
credness. This is true spiritual education 
— the practice of godliness, instead of the 
theory — the way of going about it — and by 
which the soul may, at length, be disci- 
plined to the habit of setting God always 
before it. 

It is the absence of this habit which con- 
stitutes the ungodliness of man. There 
cannot be a fouler provocation than that 
man should be satisfied to do without God ; 
and this is the provocation inflicted by all 
who have other cares and other pleasures, 
which take up the whole of their hearts, 
and have no room there for God or for god- 
liness. Each of you can best tell whether 
you fall under this description of habit and 
of character. Is it not the truth now, that 
God is scarcely in all your thoughts ?— that 
you feel no encouragement in any of his 
promises, neither do you tremble under the 
fearfulness of his denunciations? that you 



466 



DISTINCTION BETWEEN KNOWLEDGE AND CONSIDERATION. [SERM. 



are otherwise employed than in the prose- 
cution of your interest with him % and are 
busied with plans, and objects, and antici- 
pations of your own, wherewith his will, 
and his glory, have nothing to do ? This is 
your guilt. This, in the estimation of hea- 
ven's jurisprudence, is the very essence of 
sinfulness. Quite consistent, we do admit, 
with much to soften and much most ho- 
nourably to signalize you; but involving 
you in the direct charge, that none of you 
understandeth, and none of you seeketh af- 
ter God. 

IV. But the distinction between those 
who only know, and those who also consi- 
der, is never more strongly marked than in 
the peculiar doctrines of the Gospel. And 
fearful is the hazard, lest knowledge, and it 
alone, should satisfy the possessor ; lest he 
should settle down into a treacherous com- 
placency, because he has made a right ad- 
justment of the articles of his creed ; lest he 
count it enough, that he has acquiesced, at 
all points, in the orthodoxy of the question ; 
and so come forth with a flaming Chris- 
tianity, that lies more in dogmatism than in 
devotion, more in a sturdy intolerance of 
error, than in a true and tender sincerity 
of heart. And the very controversies of the 
church have served to foster this delusion. 
The very quantity of debate and of argu- 
ment that has been expended on theology, 
leads to a most hurtful misconceiving of this 
matter. You know, that the design of ar- 
gument is to carry you onward to a set of 
just and accurate convictions. This, in 
fact, is the landing place to which it brings 
you, and at which it leaves you ; and the 
danger is, that having brought you there, 
you go no further — and this place of arri- 
val becomes your place of rest, and sta- 
tionary residence. It is the pride, and am- 
bition, and the zeal of every intellectual 
combatant, to carry the understanding of 
his reader ; and having done this, he is apt 
to sit down and be satisfied with the tri- 
umphs of his gotten victory ; and the scholar 
himself, seized with the very same infection, 
may sit down, too, as if he had attained an 
ultimate good, in which he may rejoice, and 
where he may now securely and fearlessly 
repose. And yet, the whole amount of his 
acquisition may be a mere notional Chris- 
tianity — a list of doctrines that are settled 
and set by — that are as much within the 
grasp of his knowledge as many other arti- 
cles of human speculation and science — but 
are just as little reiterated upon as they by 
a habit of frequent and feeling consideration. 
And hence a familiar exhibition to all who 
live in this our scholastic land, where a 
people, fresh from their catechisms, are 
primed and charged with orthodoxy, and 
all whose articles stand before you in well- 
marshalled and metaphysical array — who 
have a religion in their heads, but that has 



there an almost exclusive occupancy— whom 
many a stout defender of the faith would 
rejoice in as his own, but in whom the 
Author and the Finisher of faith, finds lit- 
tle of that love or that obedience which to 
him are the alone tests of discipleship — a 
people whom none can challenge for igno- 
rance, but whose still unmortified tempers, 
and still unabated worldliness, may prove, 
that though they do know, yet they do not 
consider. 

It were well, if such people could be ex- 
tricated from the strongholds of their yet 
impregnable Ahtinomianism. It were well 
to alarm their conscience with the saying, 
that no knowledge and no belief will give 
them j ustification, which does not give sanc- 
tification also. All their doctrinal acquire- 
ments are precisely of as little avail as is 
the knowledge of death, if they think not 
of dying — or, as their knowledge of a God, 
if they give no earnest heed to him. It is S 
well that they know; but the blessing is 
turned into a condemnation and a curse, if, 
while they know, they do not consider. 

There are no topics on which there has 
been so much of controversy, or that has 
given rise to so many an elaborate disserta- 
tion, as the person and offices of Christ. 
And, doubtless, the scholarship has been 
well employed, that rescued from the en- 
tanglements of sophistry, the precious truth 
of the divinity of our Saviour. And well 
may England rejoice in those lettered ec- 
clesiastics, who have put down, as far as 
argument could do it, the infidelity that 
decried the truth of his high and heavenly 
apostleship. And worthier far than all the 
revenue of all her colleges, is the return of 
criticism and of demonstration that they 
have made in behalf of his great sacrifice, 
and of his unchangeable and ever-during 
priesthood. Yet, let it not be disguised, 
that the knowledge of all these credentials I 
is one thing, and the serious, the practical 
consideration of them, is another— that i 
many a commentator has mastered the dif- i 
Acuities of the question, who has not been 
solemnized by the thought of its urgent and - 
affecting realities— that stalled orthodoxy, ■ 
with her clear understanding, but untouched 
heart, has often launched upon heresy her 
mighty fulminations, and manfully asserted 
the truth which she never felt— that the 
peasant may catch direct from his Bible, 
what the dignitary has gathered by wading 
through the erudition of distant centuries ; 
and this veriest babe in literature may out- i 
strip the literary giant, because he not only 
knows the truth, but wisely and duteously 
considers it. 

Let us, in like manner, look unto Jesus 
with the eye of a plain Christian, instead 
of looking at him with the eye of a pro- 
found critic, or commentator. For this 
purpose, let us lay hold of things that are 



DISTINCTION BETWEEN KNOWLEDGE AND CONSIDERATION. 



467 



palpably and unambiguously told of him, 
and see" whether, without learning of him 
that which we do not know, much might 
not be made by considering of him that 
which we do know — and whether, out of 
such materials of thought as are within 
reach of all, there might not a far more 
solemn impression come upon the heart, 
and a far more powerful influence upon the 
character, than are to be witnessed even 
among the most zealous and declared pro- 
fessors of our day. 

First, then, he is the Apostle of our pro- 
fession, or we profess him to be our Apos- 
tle. Let us consider him as such. Let us 
bethink ourselves of all which this title im- 
plies. It means one who is sent. The 
twelve were called apostles, because sent to 
preach the Gospel unto every creature. 
And, in like manner, he too is an Apostle, 
because sent by his Father into the world. 
He came to us from a place of deep and 
unknown mystery — he traversed that do- 
main which separates the land of spirits 
from the peopled and familiar land in which 
we dwell — he burst upon our senses from 
a region where all is invisible — and far 
more wonderful than if he had been a visi- 
tor from another planet than our own, did 
he light upon our world from the dwelling- 
place of him who is the uncreated source 
of all worlds, from the very abode and 
sanctuary of the Eternal. How it ought to 
move us with awe at the approach of such 
a messenger, when we think of the glory 
and the sacredness of his former habitation ! 
— of those ineffable communions that he 
had with the Father before the world was 
— and deep insight into all those mysteries 
of God, that are to us unsearchable ! How 
it ought to fasten upon it the gaze of every 
mortal eye, that on the shore of our world 
there has been an arrival from the dark and 
the shrouded infinity which lies beyond it 
— that, at length, out of realms which are 
afar, a traveller hath come ; and that, though 
veiled from everlasting in the obscurity of 
a remote and lofty nature, he hath now 
stood revealed to the observation of human 
senses, and poured forth an utterance that 
can be taken up by human ears ! 

And what ought to fasten upon him a 
still more intense regard, he comes with a 
message to our world — he comes straight 
from the Divinity himself, and charged by 
him with a special communication — God 
had broken silence, and this great Apostle 
of oar profession was the bearer of that 
voice which speaketh from heaven unto the 
children of men. It was a thing of mighty 
import, indeed, that there should have been 
an actual errand to us from the pavilion of 
the Almighty's residence — that one fa- 
miliarly acquainted there should have come 
to tabernacle here, and to enter upon con- 
verse and companionship with men — that 



he did announce himself, and on satisfying 
credentials, to have been sent amongst us 
from the upper paradise, with tidings that 
he had to deliver, and on a work that had 
been given him to do. And it ought, at 
least, to make no difference, that now he 
has returned to the place from whence he 
came. For he left behind him the records 
of his wondrous embassy — and the authen- 
tic and the authoritative voice of heaven 
still speaketh to us there— and with our 
hands upon the Bible, we are in contact 
with the very materials of a communication 
from the Deity. In the breast of the God- 
head, there was a motion and a desire to- 
wards our species, and here is the expres- 
sion of it — the very transcript of that mes- 
sage which our Apostle brought, and which 
our Apostle left amongst us — the word that 
actually came from the secret place of the 
Eternal, and is fraught with those revealed 
things, which now belong to us and to our 
children. I declare not a novelty in your 
hearing. It is not a matter of which you 
are ignorant, and which you need to know. 
But it is a matter of which you are wofully 
heedless, and which you need to consider 
We do not need to teach you what is new. 
But we need to arrest you by the sense of 
what is old and forgotten. We charge 
your neglect of the Scriptures of our faith 
upon your neglect of that great Apostle, 
who is the Author and the Finisher of our 
faith. By your daily indifference to the 
word that is written, you inherit all the 
guilt, and will come imder the very reckon- 
ing of those, who, in the days of the Sa- 
viour, treated with neglect and indifference, 
the word that was spoken. Our challenge 
against you is, that the Bible is to you a 
thing of insipidity — that it is not desired by 
you as the aliment of your souls — that 
though unread for days together, you miss 
no necessary food, you feel no vacancy, you 
are visited with no hunger, you can do very 
well without this nourishment of the spiri- 
tual life, and so give reason to fear, that 
within you there is no spiritual principle to 
sustain. And looking unto that of which 
this written document is the memorial, do 
we charge upon all who slight the perusal 
of it, that they trample into insignificance a 
formal embassy from heaven — that they 
treat with contumely the messenger who 
came thei.ceforth unto our world — that 
God by him has spoken, and they have 
disregarded — that the daily spectacle of the 
Bible before their eyes, is a daily solicita- 
tion on the part of Christ to be heard, and 
by their continued heedlessness to which, 
they, all their lives, set his character, as an 
Apostle, utterly to scorn. 

The way to repair this treatment, is forth- 
with to give your diligence unto the book 
— and to press upon your moral sense, as 
you open it, that now you are about to en- 



468 DISTINCTION BETWEEN KNOWLEDGE AND CONSIDERATION. [SERM. 



ter into converse with God — and thus to 
fix and solemnize your attention, while you 
read those words of which Christ may be 
called the Apostle or the messenger. The 
act of reading the Bible, is the act of hold- 
ing conference with the Deity — and while 
this is what all know, this is what few con- 
sider. 

There is one topic which stands con- 
nected with the apostleship of Christ, and 
that stamps a most peculiar interest on the 
visit which he made to us from on high. 
He is God manifest in the flesh. In the 
character of a man, hath he pictured forth 
to us the attributes of the Divinity. He is 
the brightness of his Father's glory, and 
the express image of his person — yet, in 
virtue of the humanity wherewith he is in- 
vested, hath he offered, even to the eye of 
sense, a palpable representation of the God- 
head. " He who hath seen me, hath seen 
the Father," — and we, by fastening our at- 
tentive regards upon his person and history, 
may gather the very aspect and lineaments 
of the King invisible. That Being, who 
had been so long wrapt in profound est se- 
crecy from our world — that Being, whom 
none could apprehend, for no eye of mortal 
could carry him through that dark and un- 
trodden interval, by which the two regions 
of sense and of spirit stand apart from each 
other — the Being, who ever since the en- 
trance of sin, had laid his jealous interdict 
on the approaches of our species, and with- 
drawn himself by a remote and lofty sepa- 
ration away from us — he, at length, broke 
out from this vail of deepest mystery, and 
in the person of him who is at once his re- 
presentative and his Apostle, does he now 
stand before us in visible manifestation. 
And we, by considering this Apostle, learn 
of God. By looking unto him, we look 
unto the likeness of our Creator, and we 
become acquainted with him. In the 
purity, and the gentleness, and the simple 
majesty of Christ, do we read the charac- 
teristics of the Deity. And O how it con- 
cerns us to know, from this narrative of 
unwearied well-doing, that there is so much 
of benevolence in heaven — that the Sove- 
reign who sits in high authority there, is as 
good as he is great — that there is a meek- 
ness to soften the majesty of his nature, 
and a compassionate longing after those 
men whom the hand of justice was lifted 
up to destroy — that even in the holy of 
holies, there dwells a tenderness for our 
degraded species — and could the securities 
of heaven's throne only be upholden, that 
there were a good-will and a mercy on 
high, ready to burst forth upon our world 
and to circulate at large over all its fa- 
milies. 

But this leads us to another topic of con- 
sideration, the priesthood of Christ. The 
atonement that he made for sin has a fore- 



most place in orthodoxy. It is reiterated 
in all our catechisms. It forms the burden 
and the argument of many a ponderous 
dissertation. And to the popular mind, too, 
is it fully as familiar as to the accomplish- 
ed scholar in theology. Insomuch, that 
scarcely an individual can be met with, 
even in the humblest walks of society, who 
does not know, and who could not tell, that 
Christ died for the world. But as we have 
often said, there is a knowledge without 
consideration. A truth may be acquired, 
and then, cast as it were into some hidden 
corner of the mind, may it lie forgotten, as 
in a dormitory. And thus it fares with 
many a precious doctrine of the Bible. 
We learn it most readily from the ques- 
tion-book. We give the vote to it of our 
most prompt and zealous affirmative. We r 
enlist it among the articles of our creed — 
and espousing it as our own belief, do we 
become partisans, or even advocates in its 
favour. And yet all this may consist with 
an entire practical heedlessness — with a 
deep torpor and unconcern about that truth 
which may have come to us most abun- 
dantly in word, though not at all in power. 
The soul may be habitually inadvertent to 
that as a principle, which is most zeal- 
ously professed, and even contended for as 
an opinion. And accordingly, we are told 
by the apostle, of this very doctrine, that 
Christ died for our sins according to the 
Scriptures, how possible it is for men to 
receive it, yet not to remember it — that 
they may have once committed it to their 
understanding, as an article of faith, with- 
out having charged it upon their memory 
as an article of hourly and habitual recur- 
rence — that it may have been consented to 
by the mind, without being dwelt upon by 
the mind — in which ease, says Paul, you 
have believed in vain; and just because 
you keep not in memory, or, rather, con- 
sider not, and call not up to memory, that 
which I have preached unto you. 

And, therefore, would I again bid you 
consider him who is the High Priest of 
your profession. I call upon you ever and 
anon to think of this sacrifice — and to ward 
off the legality of nature from your spirits, ! 
by a constant habit of recurrence, upon 
your part, to the atonement that he hath 
made, and to the everlasting righteousness 
that he hath brought in. Without this, the I 
mind is ever lapsing anon into alienation 
and distrust — and the habitual jealousy of 
guilt, when not met, at all times, by a sense 
of that blood which washes it away, will 
throw us back again to our wonted distance 
from God — and instead of breathing the 
free air of confidence in him, or rejoicing j 
in the sunshine of his reconciled counte- 
nance, there will be a flaw of suspicion in 
all our intercourse, and instead of loving 
him as a friend, we shall still stand in ! 



XV.] 



DISTINCTION BETWEEN KNOWLEDGE AND CONSIDERATION. 



469 



dread of him as an accuser. There may 
be the occasional recognition of Christ, and, 
perhaps, along with it a gleam of light and 
of liberty. But the general state will be, 
that of a mind which is overcast. And, 
therefore, to keep all clear, and habitually 
clear, would I advise a regular forthgoing 
of your believing thoughts, to the great 
decease that was accomplished at Jerusa- 
lem. I would have you to look unto Jesus 
Christ, and unto him crucified, and be 
lightened thereby. Forget not that for guilt 
there has been an appropriate remedy pro- 
vided in the Gospel — and the w r ay for you 
to stand delivered from all your fears of its 
vengeance and its agony, is to think of the 
vengeance that has already been poured 
out, and of the agony that has already been 
endured for it. Be very sure, that when 
justice is satisfied, then mercy, set at large 
from this obstruction, is free to rejoice over 
you. And justice is satisfied. The suffer- 
ings of the garden and the cross, have ab- 
sorbed it all — nor after Christ hath poured 
out his soul unto the death for you, will it 
seek, in the horrors of your condemned 
eternity, for a double redress, and a double 
vindication. O, come out then, from the 
prison-house of despondency — and, when 
you think of your sins, think also of the 
ransom which has been paid for them. On 
the strength of this, do make your resolute 
stand against the spirit of bondage — and 
looking, and looking hourly unto the vic- 
tim who has already bled a full expiation, 
do uphold yourself in the confidence, that 
sin is made an end of, that transgression is 
finished, that reconciliation for iniquity is 
made, and that now the believer, released 
from captivity, may walk before God in the 
security and the triumph of an everlasting 
righteousness. 

In other sacrifices, the priest is distin- 
guishable from the victim. Here they are 
the same. He was the victim when dying. 
He is the High Priest, now that he is risen 
again. And thus does he still plead, in the 
ear of God, the offering that was once 
made, and the powder of which endureth 
continually. That incense, with the savour 
of which God was well pleased, he is at 
all times well pleased to be reminded of — 
and only consider him who fills his mouth 
with this argument in behalf of all who re- 



pair to him, who can argue his sacrifice as 
an adequate redemption for the chief of 
sinners, and wiiose glory as a physician 
and a Saviour, is most illustrated, when the 
most desperate of offenders come unto him, 
and are healed. It is not enough, that you 
have, at one time, imported this into your 
understanding, and given it a place there 
among the articles of your belief. It is by 
keeping it in memory — it is by renewing 
upon it your mental acts of faith and de- 
pendence — it is by again and again re- 
pairing to it — and looking habitually unto 
him as your Intercessor and High Priest, 
even as the children of Israel looked daily 
to Jerusalem, at the times of their morning 
and evening sacrifice. It is thus, that 
peace is kept up in the heart— and it is 
thus, that instead of coming upon us at 
starts, and in the shape of a momentary 
visitation, it maintains the continuous flow 
within us, of a river that is at once mighty 
and inexhaustible. It is thus, that this doc- 
trine of our faith, instead of having only 
once made its entrance into our creed, is 
used by us at all times as a cordial— and 
the thought of Christ, as our acceptable 
and all-prevailing High Priest, is often pre- 
sent to the mind, and always felt to be pre- 
cious. 

And never forget that the way to main- 
tain peace of conscience, is also the way to 
maintain purity of character. This is a 
mystery of the Christian life which the 
world apprehendeth not — and yet so real- 
ized, we think, by universal experience, 
that never do we reckon, in the history of 
the church, or in an3 7 of its members, had 
wilful sin place at the same time along 
with a full exercise of faith on the testi- 
mony of God. It is peace in the conscience, 
in fact, that keeps up love in the heart. It 
is this which, by putting joy, and hope, 
and confidence in the bosom, furnishes the 
soul w r ith the most powerful springs of 
obedience. It is this which awakens grati- 
tude in the bosom, that ere now was beset 
with the cold distractions of legality ; and 
under the constraining influence of the 
love of Christ, is it ever found, that the 
most joyful believer is also the most fruit- 
ful believer, living no longer to himself, but 
to Christ who died for him, and who rose 
again. 



THE END. 



H 57 82 ~* 



